On wind-swept canyon heights squat junipers Lean from the rim, Gnarled ancient ones with twisted limbs, heads bowed And root-hold grim. The saga of a thousand years of storms Is in the sweep Of ribboned arms and straining roots, In granite muscled deep To block the one-way traffic of the winds Whose swish and zing Demand and give no edge of mercy To a living thing, Cyclonic winds whose fury these defied In bitter fight And, matching will to will, though dying, Have survived each night To greet the latest dawning, warming Every blue-clad hill, And smiled -- like old faces touched By death's long morning -- Victors still! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PORTRAIT OF ONE DEAD by CONRAD AIKEN SONNET: 1. THE BRIGHT MOON by CONRAD AIKEN ABANDONED RANCH, BIG BEND by HAYDEN CARRUTH CONTRA MORTEM: THE LEAVES by HAYDEN CARRUTH WISDOM COMETH WITH THE YEARS by COUNTEE CULLEN PURSUIT OF THE WORD by ROBERT FROST I LOOKED FOR LIFE AND DID A SHADOW SEE by JAMES GALVIN |