Jimmy Santiago Baca: "This Day"

I feel foolish, 
    like those silly robins jumping on the ditch boughs 
    when I run by them.  
                   Those robins do not have the grand style of the red tailed hawk,   
                    no design, no dream, just robins acting stupid.
They've never smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey, consumed drugs
as I have.
                    In their mindless
                    fluttering about
                    filled with nonsense, 
                         they tell me how they
                                 love the Great Spirit,            
                     scold me not to be self-pitying,
                     to open my life
                     and make this day a bough on a tree
                     leaning over infinity, where eternity flows forward
                     and with day the river runs                       
                                  carrying all that falls in it.            
                     Be happy Jimmy, they chirp,            
                     Jimmy, be silly, make this day a tree
                     leaning over the river eternity
                     and fuss about in its branches.

"This Day" by Jimmy Santiago Baca, from Spring Poems Along the Rio Grande. © New Directions, 2007.

Image credit: Unknown (originally color).