John Haines, pictured above in the red V-neck at the 1990 Alaskan Poetry Festival in Fairbanks, died last Wednesday at the age of 86. The NYT has this to say about the poet:
Mr. Haines may have been drawn to the far North in the manner of Robert Service or Jack London, but unlike them he came to stay and carve out a long life. He cleared forest, built cabins, planted gardens, chopped wood, cut trails, traveled by snowshoe and dogsled, trapped lynx and marten, weaved nets for salmon fishing, and had encounters with grizzlies.
Harper's critic Hayden Carruth labeled John Haines "one of our best nature poets, or for that matter one of the best nature writers of any kind." Jerry B. McAninch describes Haines in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as a "present-day pioneer," asserting that the poet "speaks as a man who not only lived on one of the nation's few remaining frontiers but who, both through long association and innate artistic sensibility, has come to embody that frontier in his writing."Read "If The Owl Calls Again" from his 1966 book of poems, Winter News, after the jump.If The Owl Calls Againat duskfrom the island in the river,and it's not too cold,I'll wait for the moonto rise,then take wing and glideto meet him.We will not speak,but hooded against the frostsoar abovethe alder flats, searchingwith tawny eyes.And then we'll sitin the shadowy spruceand pick the bonesof careless mice,while the long moon driftstoward Asiaand the river muttersin its icy bed.And when the morning climbsthe limbswe'll part without a sound,fulfilled, floatinghomeward asthe cold world awakens.