Rare flower seekers
found his car, a hulk
of desert metal,
all his burnt cash petals
long since blown.
Moose hunters in Alaska
found the magic bus:
Tolstoy, Pasternak, Thoreau,
his Taina plant lore book
and, shrunk to a husk,
Alexander Supertramp,
his lonely trail blazed back
into himself. And seared
on the undeveloped reel,
pre-image of a soul.
These traces that we leave
of all we’ve saved, or slain.
Beautiful blueberries,
seed, moose, river, stone –
the things we’ve known
and sometimes rightly named.
Note: Sean Penn’s film Into the Wild is based on Jon Krakauer’s book of the same name, about the life, and death in Alaska, of Christopher McCandless.
Into the Wild is taken from Isobel Dixon’s latest collection, The Tempest Prognosticator, published by Salt
Her next UK event is Out of the Debris’ at Rich Mix in London on 21st February 2012
www.isobeldixon.com
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