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Upon a Peak in Darien
by
Richard Greene


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Imagine a new ocean
finding yourself at its edge
wondering how wide
how tumultuous its storms
what strange creatures dwell therein—
like those that fill the uncharted spaces on old maps—
what continents rise from its waters
their mountains how high
their forests how vast
what islands garland its expanse
what civilizations its rims
what sort of men, savage or urbane, people its shores.
You might well look with wild surmise. 
 

© by Richard Greene.
Used with the author's permission.

 


Richard Greene began writing poetry in the 8th grade, inspired by the opening lines of Longfellow's “Evangeline”—“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks / Bearded in moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight"—which he was required to read in class. In college, after a classmate deemed Richard’s rhyming poem “trite,” he stopped writing until, a couple of years later, a class with Henry Rago, subsequently editor of Poetry magazine, inspired him to resume his efforts. But poetry fell by the wayside for almost forty years as a busy career in international development consumed his life. As retirement approached, however, Richard’s dedication to poetry returned; he has since published three chapbooks: The Broken Guitar: Poems of War; Becoming Old: Poems of Aging; Painting with Words: Landscapes in Verse; and one full -length collection, To Talk of Many Things: Selected Poems. Richard, who lives in Nyack, New York, shares a "poem of the week" with anyone interested; get on his mailing list by requesting it at greeneplace@gmail.com.

              

 


Post New Comment:
Mary Lou Taylor:
To begin and end with Keats. A fine last line, too. Thank you, YDP Editor, for giving us a series of poems after Keats.
Posted 11/13/2013 10:47 AM
Katrina:
These are ripples that resonate with me.
Posted 11/13/2013 04:35 AM


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