Life in the fast lane.

For my outside reading this week I decided to read a poem. Finding it hard to let my mind wonder free at all poetry seemed like a good chioce. I searched a few different poetry cites mostly looking at "Poem of the Month." I finally came across a poem I really liked. I also found it significant to our new and busy lives. It's call "Barking" by Jim Harrison. The poem talks about how night and day life was and how fast it went by. How he was "On a short chain" (11) but "Now there's no chain at all" (12). This is significant to me today because I can see my life going into high gear and the days are already sliding by at break neck speed. I think they are for a lot of us. The poem talks about how life went into this mode and got away from the one living it. I recently turned 16. Unlike most kids I wasn't very happy about it. I didn't want to watch my childhood go, I didn't feel like I had lived enough of it, like it had slipped by. Now that the bindings of childhood are gone, I am becoming an individual. There are no chains on me now. They've began releasing from all of us. We're growing and up and becoming independant. I take the main theme of this poem is to live your life because it goes by fast. I'm living my own life that way as we speak. I think you, dear reader, should read this poem and see how it strikes you. Maybe you'll see it like I do and it'll help you live a happier life. Maybe not. I love poems about life, and this is a good example of that.


Harrison, Jim. "Barking". Poetry. Poetry Foundation. 18 Sept 2008. http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/0908/poem_182141.html