Jim Harrison’s poem Rivers has always felt connected to life on the Yellowstone River. As a full-time fishing guide in Livingston, I see the river the way Harrison wrote about it — always moving, always honest, and never matching anyone’s plans. His line, “Because life herself moves and you can’t stop it,” lands a little deeper when you spend most days tied to your environment and reading water.
Wheatgrass Books is selling a simple printed copy of the poem. It’s nothing more than a clean sheet of paper, but it carries more weight than that. A friend who lives out of town asked me to pick one up for him, and I understood right away. Even if you never knew Harrison, the poem feels tied to my environment on the Yellowstone River.
I didn’t know him personally, and I never guided him. A couple of guides in town did, though. He showed up in certain circles around Livingston, the kind you hear about even if you’re not part of them. That’s how things work here. People move through their own circles of the area, and the rest of us catch glimpses along the edges.
I’m not a literary type, but it does interest me when someone writes something that lines up with how I actually live. That line from Rivers “Because life herself moves and you can’t stop it” carries the same truth I see on the water every day.
A river doesn’t check your plans. It doesn’t speed up because you’re in a hurry, and it doesn’t ease off because you want one more chance at a certain bend. A river does what it does. It is what it is.
Guiding taught me that early. You’re not steering the day; you’re responding to it. You read the current, you watch the light, you adjust to what the fish want, and you deal with things as they come….. for better or worse.
And the client becomes part of that rhythm too. The fishing is part of the day, of course, but giving someone a real sense of the Yellowstone often runs deeper than putting a fish in the net. When a client looks up from the flies and the drift, lifts their eyes off the water, and finally sees where they actually are….. that quiet “wow” moment, that makes my day. It’s the moment the whole valley clicks into place for them.
Catching a fish is great, and a photo is always fun, but the real value is what they carry home: the pace of the river, the feel of the valley, and the sense that, for a little while, they were part of something steady and real.
That’s what I hear in Harrison’s poem. He wasn’t trying to control anything. He was letting the world move and paying attention to the small, honest truths right in front of him. That’s the approach I try to take on the water. Show up, listen, and let the river set the terms.
We spend a lot of time chasing the perfect day, but the river keeps reminding us that the perfect day is usually the one we’re standing in.