A golden shovel in blank verse
EPIGRAPH:
I donโt know what happens after death but Iโll have to chance it.
Desert Snow, Jim Harrison (1937 โ 2016)
Left alone to my own devices, I oft ponder beyondering, though I don't dare wander past the edges of we-know before twilight. O, Sun, I wonder what, while watching you fade away, what happens ~ in the perpetual darkness after, though even you haven't seen your own death. None will be for your final flickers, but a handful shall heap grief whe(r/n)ever I'll no-longer, marking time, as bodies have since first being. So, while you'll return to dawn again, I won't be watching, my chance a once-dream, like my father's before it.
d’Verse poetics prompt
Songs of Unreason
At d’Verse, poets were encouraged to pick one of the following eight lines of poet Jim Harrison’s and use it as an epigraph for a poem inspired by that line (poems may be written in any form):
- โThere is a human wildness held beneath the skin.โ – Arts, Jim Harrison
- โHe went to sea in a thimble of poetry.โ – Poet Warning, Jim Harrison
- โIn truth each day is a universe in which we are tangled in the light of stars.โ – Horses, Jim Harrison
- โI donโt know what happens after death but Iโll have to chance it.โ – Desert Snow, Jim Harrison
- โYes, in the predawn black the slim slip of the waning moon.โ – Remote Friends, Jim Harrison
- โSome days in March are dark and some altogether glittery and loud with birds.โ – March in Patagonia, AZ, Jim Harrison
- โWeโre doubtless as old as our mothers, thousands of generations waiting for the sunlight.โ – Sunlight, Jim Harrison
- โAfter last nightโs storm the tulip petals are strewn across the patio where they mortally fluttered.โ – Church, Jim Harrison
Let’s write poetry together!

When it comes to partnership, some humans can make their lives alone – it’s possible. But creatively, it’s more like painting: you can’t just use the same colours in every painting. It’s just not an option. You can’t take the same photograph every time and live with art forms with no differences.
–Ben Harper (b. 1969)
Would you like to create poetry with me and have a completed poem of yours featured here at the Skeptic’s Kaddish? I am very excited to have launched the ‘Poetry Partners’ initiative and am looking forward to meeting and creating with you… Check it out!
Beautiful. ๐
๐ Terveen ๐
A wistful, philosophical poem, David. It’s hard not to wonder about these things from time to time!
๐๐ Ingrid ๐๐
Amazing what you have done with this form. ‘I/ oft ponder beyondering’ – this is a line I will have in my head for a while I think. โค
๐๐ Marion ๐๐
A dear blog friend/poet’s daughter .. only 27 .. passed away after a long, courageous battle with an intractable illness. I believe angels surrounded her, carried her gently .. peaceful at last.
๐ Helen ๐
I don’t want to comment. I just want to sit with this excellent poem a while.
๐๐ Shay ๐๐
Indeed a mystery for us at this side of life. I love how you weaved the quote in your end line verses – golden shovel form.
โค ๐ Thanks, Grace โค ๐