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36
A Day in the Back Country
i
Strong cold gusts rake the ridge;
I drive into the east light;
The roadside wild oats shake,
Glisten delicately
-- Silver for a girl's wrist.
But here sea haze to right,
Mountain chasm to left,
Against their small clearness.
ii
Miles, and nobody, then
Two helicopter crews,
Machines idling nearby,
And this whole back country
Seems theirs -- they criss-cross it
As they please, their faces
Interested, easily
Looking out over it.
iii
More miles, and I wonder
Am I lost? A deer stands
Quietly in the road,
A fl owering up, it seems,
Of the dust of the road
At just this moment,
And the road itself wild.
The deer walks off , down the slope.