Pikes Peak

Pikes Peak
"Spacious Skies"
Showing posts with label John Haines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Haines. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Highest Peak in North America



Denali is the highest peak in North America, 20,310'.  Below are excerpts from poet John Haines.  He is an Alaskan poet who is described as one of the best nature writers.

Ice Child

By John Haines (1924-2011)

Cold for so long, unable to speak,
yet your mouth seems framed
on a cry, or a stifled question.

Who placed you here, and left you
to this lonely eternity of ash and ice,
and himself returned to the dust.
fields, the church and the temple?

Was it God--the sun-god of the Incas,
the imperial god of the Spaniards?
Or only the priests of that god,
self-elected---voice of the volcano
that speaks once in a hundred years...

Under the weight of this mountain-
once a god, now only restless stone,
we find your interrupted life,
placed here among the trilobites
and shells, so late unearthed.