(Rock Lake, Canada) <br /> <br />In this country there is neither measure nor balance <br />To redress the dominance of rocks and woods, <br />The passage, say, of these man-shaming clouds. <br /> <br />No gesture of yours or mine could catch their attention, <br />No word make them carry water or fire the kindling <br />Like local trolls in the spell of a superior being. <br /> <br />Well, one wearies of the Public Gardens: one wants a vacation <br />Where trees and clouds and animals pay no notice; <br />Away from the labeled elms, the tame tea-roses. <br /> <br />It took three days driving north to find a cloud <br />The polite skies over Boston couldn't possibly accommodate. <br />Here on the last frontier of the big, brash spirit <br /> <br />The horizons are too far off to be chummy as uncles; <br />The colors assert themselves with a sort of vengeance. <br />Each day concludes in a huge splurge of vermilions <br /> <br />And night arrives in one gigantic step. <br />It is comfortable, for a change, to mean so little. <br />These rocks offer no purchase to herbage or people: <br /> <br />They are conceiving a dynasty of perfect cold. <br />In a month we'll wonder what plates and forks are for. <br />I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here. <br /> <br />The Pilgrims and Indians might never have happened. <br />Planets pulse in the lake like bright amoebas; <br />The pines blot our voices up in their lightest sighs. <br /> <br />Around our tent the old simplicities sough <br />Sleepily as Lethe, trying to get in. <br />We'll wake blank-brained as water in the dawn.<br /><br />Sylvia Plath<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/two-campers-in-cloud-country/
