Articles

May 11, 1935

Dear Mr. Powers,

I love the twin states of the Northwest next to God and my country; and if either should cease to claim me as one of her writers, my heart would be broken.

A poet sang to a star,
Ay, sang out his soul—to die;
But ever the crimson heart
Of the star beat in the sky.

I write a sonnet? But a sonnet, dear,
May be the breaking of an Easter morn;
Or a low wind among the ripening corn
When russet silk tops each green-golden ear;

Ah me! I know how large and cool and white
The moon lies on the brow of Sehome Hill,
And how the firs stand shadowy and still,
Etched on that luminous background this soft night;

When soft and deep in Sweden’s skies
Moons burn like golden fire,
And the nightingale thrills all the wood
With exquisite desire,

The little hollows in the pavements shine
With the soft, hesitating April rain,
That sifts across the city, gray and fine,
And on the huddling, spent waves of the main,—
Where the wild, silver seabirds wheel and scream.

Would I were in Alaska this fair night!
Sailing that noble sweep of sapphire sea
Where for a thousand miles continuously
The snow-pearl mountains shimmer, lustrous, white,
Or burn to opals in the northern light.

Take not endeavor from me. To the last
Give me the quick blood and the eager heart;
The ecstasy of striving; and the smart
Of failure’s needles pricking fine and fast
To goad me to achievement. Unaghast,

Nearing thirty and walking on the Marcellus Shale, Mina pauses when Gould asks her to marry him. In the small, quick window of her hesitation, she compares her studio apartment in the city to his three-story brownstone with the park green opposite.

Josh MacIvor-Andersen is the author of the memoir On Heights & Hunger, and the editor of Rooted, An Anthology of Arboreal Nonfiction.