To Father Hubbard, the “Glacier Priest”
The Isle of Ghostly Trees
The isle of ghostly trees: bleak trees whose souls
Visibly tread the too eternal dark!
Seething volcanoes whose dim, poisonous bowls
Breathe in the trees a strange, new, vital spark!
Shrill-glaring torches flaunt the scarry shoals
Of lone Alaska’s fire-shriven park:
Flaunt with emblazoned face the tragic tolls
Of brave explorers who have failed their mark.
This isle presents an awesome paradox:
A further proof of the immortal plan
That life in very dying conquers death.
An iridescent flame transcends the rocks,
As from the soul of a forgotten man,
And stirs the trees with spiritual breath.
Evelyn Coffey
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This poem seems to me a great example of "strophe" and "antistrophe" in poetry. The first stanza (strophe) presents a picture. The second provides meaning, an "innerness" that invites us to enter the poem's secret, or the poet's, or our own. Again, notice the strict adherence to rules of rhythm and rhyme, and how Evelyn is so adept at painting a picture for us, and just as we are delighing in it, she shows us that it is merely a curtain, behind which we fine a deeper, more radical beauty, one that calls to us from within ourselves.
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