Beyond and farther and yet from every vantage rising eternally near crag above crag this is the upthrust A tossed village lies like a trampled flag at its feet and up there look the ridge sloughs off the stunted firs like the very selvedge of earth itself raveled and frayed where the ground peels back Call it the void pulled inside out or the universal grain in a mindless exultation sprung from the notgrain Its climbers learn footholds too far apart and their own impatience and death in the dark drops Call it a comprising call it the center and edge of every relation the journeyer's pivot and the journeyer's horizon. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE STELLA'S BIRTHDAY, 1726-7 by JONATHAN SWIFT CEREMONIAL ODE; INTENDED FOR A UNIVERSITY by LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH: BOOK 4. THE PASSIONS by JOHN ARMSTRONG THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 101. AGE: 2 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT MY FATHER WAS A FARMER by ROBERT BURNS |