Retrospective
Sandy Lyne
In Denali
for John Haines
In some poets, maybe only a few,
there is a great distance,
ruled only by sun, and wind, and snow,
crossed by bone-chilling rivers and streams—
a mountain, a valley, a plain,
an unconquered place, untamable,
unapproachable, wild.
There, the poet is like that grizzly
I saw this morning
on a hillside meadow,
rummaging, drunk on berries,
happy in his solitude.
Leave me alone, he seemed to say.
Do not think to come near.
I need such territory.
Oh, but we want to come near,
lean against that golden fur,
knowing we will have to make do
with the binoculars
called poems.
© The Estate of Sandford Lyne
