Remote

The farthest country is Tierra del Fuego,
That is the bleakest and the loneliest land;
There are the echoing mountains of felspar,
And salt winds walking the empty sand.

This country remembers the birth of the moon
From a rocky rib of the young earth’s side;
It heard the white-hot mountains bellow
Against the march of the first flood tide.

I lifted a shell by the grass-green breakers
And heard what no man has heard before,
The whisper of steam in the hot fern forest
And slow feet crunching the ocean floor.

I saw the slanted flash of a sea gull
When a sheaf of light poured over the clouds,
I heard the wind in the stiff dune grasses,
But I saw no sail and I heard no shrouds.

To a promontory of Tierra del Fuego
I climbed at noon and stretched my hand
Toward another country, remoter and bleaker.