How hard to take the trail
as it comes, digressive,
narrow-minded with underbrush
or switchbacks, to expect
anything other than risers
of root and rock, brook and sky
retreating like careful animals.
How hard to settle for less
than luxurious prospect,
a log in a small clearing
quick with insects and curious
weeds, the song of descent
short, flat, blunt, never
hammered into a dulcimer form.
Michael McFee has published five collections of poetry — Plain Air, Vanishing Acts, Sad Girl Sitting on a Running Board, Colander, and Earthly — and has a sixth forthcoming. He has also published two anthologies, The Language They Speak Is Things To Eat: Poems by Fifteen Contemporary North Carolina Poets (UNC Press, 1994) and This is Where We Live: New North Carolina Short Stories (UNC Press 2000). He has also collaborated with photographer Elizabeth Matheson on To See (North Carolina Wesleyan College Press, 1991). He currently teaches at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Poem from Plain Air, © 1983 Florida Board of Regents, Michael McFee. Used by permission of author.