Poem by Robert Edward Duncan

Childhood’s Retreat

It’s in the perilous boughs of the tree 
out of blue skythe 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.”

1. Styx

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