The poem

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Poetry

My other love. A good poem can transport me to new and beautiful places just as well as a mountain trail. And sometimes the two -- poetry and hiking -- combine to create a doubly delightful experience.

Walt Whitman

It was quite a few years ago when I had just returned from a 10 day pack-touring trip and found this poem in, of all places, an EMS sale circular. Up until that point, my appreciation of poetry was mostly limited to an intellectual level. I relished the cleverness, the rhythm, the precise selection of wording. But this poem truly unveiled to me the emotional and spiritual roots of fine poetry. When I had finished reading, I felt as though Mr. Whitman had been with me in my travels. I knew the meaning of the term, "kindred spirits."

Song of the Open Road

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune.
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.

Edna St.Vincent Millay

Millay grew up in Camden, Maine; "Where the mountains meet the sea," as today's chamber of commerce puts it. She spent many days on the summits of Battie and Megunticook, enjoying the view and composing poetry. This poem has become one of my favorites, originally because of the picture it creates in my mind and for the lyricism for which Millay is so well known. It was only after many revisits that I realized that the poem is a straight-forward metaphor, and that Millay was stating a vow -- an oath of how she would live the rest of her life and how she would approach the ultimate end that awaits us all.

Afternoon on a Hill

I will be the gladdest thing
xxx Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
xxx And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
xxx With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
xxx And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
xxx Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
xxx And then start down!

Robert Louis Stevenson

Anyone who has read Treasure Island can understand that Stevenson had the spirit of adventure and penchant for travel found in the most devoted hikers. Although not a poem, this quote addresses a fundamental truth for many of us.

He who is indeed of the brotherhood, does not voyage in quest of the picturesque, but of certain jolly humours -- of the hope and spirit with which the march begins at morning, and the peace and spiritual repletion of the evening's rest. He cannot tell whether he puts his knapsack on, or takes it off, with more delight.

Bard Stopher

Gotta stick in one of my own. Lucy Larcom, a rather obscure poet during the period of romanticism in the last half of the nineteenth century, wrote a poem that essentially renamed half the peaks in the Sandwich Range. When the newly-formed Appalachian Mountain Club took on the task of straightening out White Mountain appellations, they adopted some of her suggestions. They also named a peak in the Ossipees for her. There's one peak that I really wish Larcom had left alone.

Old Shag

Before the poets seized the peak
And claimed their rights of nomenclature,
Settlers gazed at craggy heights
Of gravel slides and granite slabs,
Of rugged cols and ragged crests,
And christened it "Old Shag."

Praise the bard who understands,
Who savors vernacular wisdom;
But pity the scribe whose vanity
Sheds essence in favor of flowery fluff.
"Old Shag" the settlers named it.
"Old Shag" it is to me.