Lookout poetry ...

My plan is to use this blog mostly as a personal journal, but I'll probably share some other things, as well. I'm fascinated by the histories of these places, in particular, and by the stories of the people who staffed them years ago.  And I also enjoy digging up lookout-related literature, and lookout poetry.

With that, I thought I'd share Gary Snyder's "Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout" ... probably the famous of the lookout poems.  It was published in his 1969 volume, Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems.

Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain  
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.

I cannot remember things I once read  
A few friends, but they are in cities.  
Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup  
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.