Jim Harrison RIP. Terrif preterite poem.

[Smoke Teff]

Tom Bissell wrote what I remember as a moving, personal essay about Harrison. I guess Bissell grew up with JH as a family friend. I read it in Bissell's collection Magic Hours, which I liked. 

Here's an online version of what I think is the essay. Not sure how much the version I read was changed from this one. 

http://www.outsideonline.com/1893296/last-lion

> On Mar 27, 2016, at 3:59 PM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Like his books very much. Didn't know the poem – thanks, Mark.
> 
> 2016-03-27 22:23 GMT+02:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
>> EASTER MORNING
>> 
>> by Jim Harrison
>> 
>> On Easter morning all over America
>> the peasants are frying potatoes in bacon grease.
>> 
>> We're not supposed to have "peasants"
>> but there are tens of millions of them
>> frying potatoes on Easter morning,
>> cheap and delicious with catsup.
>> 
>> If Jesus were here this morning he might
>> be eating fried potatoes with my friend
>> who has a '51 Dodge and a '72 Pontiac.
>> 
>> When his kids ask why they don't have
>> a new car he says, "these cars were new once
>> and now they are experienced."
>> 
>> He can fix anything and when rich folks
>> call to get a toilet repaired he pauses
>> extra hours so that they can further
>> learn what we're made of.
>> 
>> I told him that in Mexico the poor say
>> that when there's lightning the rich
>> think that God is taking their picture.
>> He laughed.
>> 
>> Like peasants everywhere in the history
>> of the world ours can't figure out why
>> they're getting poorer. Their sons join
>> the army to get work being shot at.
>> 
>> Your ideals are invisible clouds
>> so try not to suffocate the poor,
>> the peasants, with your sympathies.
>> They know that you're staring at them.
>> 
>> "Easter Morning" by Jim Harrison, from Saving Daylight. © Copper Canyon Press, 2007.
>> 
> 
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