Now the Sierra tree, the Sierra wildflower glow
Near polished granite, bright as is the snow
That hoods the mountains of Yosemite
In my remembrance. These I truly know
That I have seen with my own eyes, and yet
There merges with them an unreckoned crowd
Of things more richly seen, of farther heights
Than I have ever traveled; seasons strange
And dangerous moments on that stony range
That Muir was first to call the Range of Light;
Moments of wisdom and intenser sight. And these I owe to one
Who built his campfire on the canyon rim,
Who woke at dawn, and felt surrounding him
The mind of God in every living thing,
And things unliving, from the snowy ring
Of peaks, to, near his bed, the smallest heather
Lifting a fragile head
to greet the sun.
“For John Muir, a Century and More After His Time” from The Selected Poems of Janet Lewis edited by R.L. Barth. Published in 2000 by Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio (www.ohioswallow.com).
Source: The Selected Poems of Janet Lewis (Ohio University Press, 2000)
