Childhood’s Retreat. ROBERT DUNCAN

It’s in the perilous boughs of the tree 

out of blue sky the wind 

sings loudest surrounding me.

And solitude, a wild solitude

’s reveald, fearfully, high I’d climb 

into the shaking uncertainties,

part out of longing, part daring my self,

part to see that

widening of the world, part

to find my own, my secret

hiding sense and place, where from afar 

all voices and scenes come back

—the barking of a dog, autumnal burnings,

far calls, close calls— the boy I was

calls out to me

here the man where I am “Look!

I’ve been where you

most fear to be.”