Drinking Song

By: Jim Harrison

PHOTO: WYATT MCSPADDEN.

I want to die in the saddle. An enemy of civilization,
I want to walk around in the woods, fish and drink.

I'm going to be a child about it and I can't help it, I was born this way and it makes me very happy to fish and drink.

I left when it was still dark and walked on the path to the river, the Yellow Dog, where I spent the day fishing and drinking.

After she left me and I quit my job and wept for a year and all my poems were born dead, I decided I would only fish and drink.

Water will never leave earth and whiskey is good for the brain. What else am I supposed to do in these last days but fish and drink?

In the river was a trout and I was on the bank, my heart in my chest, clouds above, she was in NY forever and I, fishing and drinking.

You can find this poem in Jim Harrison’s marvelous collection of poetry: Jim Harrison: The Essential Poems