I Hold The Most Archaic Values On

Clambering Up The Cold Mountain Path, The Cold Mountain Trail Goes On And On: The Long Gorge Choked With Scree And Boulders, The Wide Creek, The Mist-blurred Grass. The Moss Is Slippery, Though There's Been No Rain The Pine Sings, But There's No Wind. Who Can Leap The World's Ties And Sit With Me Among The White Clouds?

As A Poet I Hold The Most Archaic Values On Earth . . . The Fertility Of The Soil, The Magic Of Animals, The Power-vision In Solitude, The Terrifying Initiation And Rebirth, The Love And Ecstasy Of The Dance, The Common Work Of The Tribe. I Try To Hold Both History And The Wilderness In Mind, That My Poems May Approach The True Measure Of Things And Stand Against The Unbalance And Ignorance Of Our Times.

Wilderness Is A Place Where The Wild Potential Is Fully Expressed, A Diversity Of Living And Nonliving Beings Flourishing According To Their Own Sorts Of Order. In Ecology We Speak Of "wild Systems." When An Ecosystem Is Fully Functioning, All The Members Are Present At The Assembly. To Speak Of Wilderness Is To Speak Of Wholeness. Human Beings Came Out Of That Wholeness, And To Consider The Possibility Of Reactivating Membership In The Assembly Of All Beings Is In No Way Regressive.

In Paul Friedrich's Book Proto-indo-european Trees He Identifies The "semantic Primitives" Of The Indo-european Tribe Of Languages Through A Group Of Words That Have Not Changed Much Through Twelve Thousand Years - And Those Are Tree Names: Especially Birch, Willow, Adler, Elm, Ash, Apple And Beech (bher, Wyt, Alysos, Ulmo, Os, Abul, Bhago). Seed Syllables, Bija, Of The Life Of The West.

Knowing Where And Who Are Intimately Linked.