David Lee has been a soldier, a boxer, a university professor, a pig farmer and was the first Poet Laureate of Utah. Copper Canyon Press has published a lot of his work, most of it dealing with pig farming and his friendship with renegade pig farmer John Simms (The Porcine Legacy and The Porcine Chronicles both now out-of-print). More recently, his poetry has been inspired by landscapes, by the human connection to the natural world and the beauty he has experienced in the Utah canyon lands. The result of that work — a book entitled So Quietly the Earth — was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2004. That book was selected by librarians of the New York Public Library for its prestigious "Books to Remember" list, an annual list of 25 outstanding books. His reading of these poems is available on a CD, accompanied by bassist Glen Moore.
When Roderick MacIver interviewed Dave, he asked him what he was learning about life,
and about the connection between life, simplicity, happiness and
poetry. He said:
In my earlier book (A Legacy of Shadows, Selected Poems), I chose as an
epigraph something said by a character in one of my poems ("The Fish").
Actually, I fell in love with this character. And she is not even
described, but her name is Modean Gill. She says, "The process of life,
poetically speaking, is a passing between dream and reality, and the
mark of any man I could ever trust or care for is that he would never
presume to say which is which."
Spinoza said that the meaning of life is finding something that will
grant us supreme, unending happiness. I think he was a little farfetched in that.
I think happiness is the journey, not the destination. I think that
happiness comes from finding a code of "right living" — where we feel
comfortable with what we believe and the way we live. It is a state of
mind rather than an end result. There is no stop sign at the end of it,
unless we call death a stop sign.
I think that the purpose of poetry is like the purpose of life. Poetry
helps me find a closer relationship between me and my own life. And the
relationship between my own life and the thing I call divinity. If that
works, then the poetry works.
For some it must be thunder. The mass
of clouds piling over the mountains,
great dark-bellied sky
crackling with ragged light. Deer
rushing through the fragile spaces
we call silence toward a groaning sanctuary
of swaying pine. High meadow
drenched with rain.
For others fragrance. Moist earth
almost forgotten over winter,
a frail scent of budding aspen.
Bubble of willow springs. Bees
hovering delicate pink and white
blossoms spreading an emerging meadow
through rotting snow.
Aspen Pole Fence
The aspen poles criss-cross, a zig-zag line
slicing the dry belly of the meadow, five high
at one hundred twenty degree angles compounded.
Such waste in a pragmatic sense. Consider
materials: five aspen poles per section at, say,
twenty feet per pole. With angles, six sections builds
approximately eighty feet of fence, a net loss of two
sections, ten aspen poles. But they gained strength.
And durability. Chester said the old Horse Valley
fence stood seventy years, which means fifty, until
Forest Service knocked the east side down, let
Job Corps put up sheep mesh, which went over
in the second year’s snow. And the aesthetics.
Gods. The beauty of a cross pole fence in autumn.
But the trees. The beautiful aspen cut wholesale
for such a piece of geometry: five poles per section
when one pole equals one tree once living now
one pole. Chester said there are plenty of aspen
in the first place and in the second some things
have to be sacrificed in the name of progress
and in the third that land belongs to him. Which
means the trees. Unless they can find a way to leave.
Which is why he built that fence in the first place:
so things wouldn’t be getting away. They’re only
trash trees. You can’t get rid of them when you try.
Why is it that for some things there is partial sacrifice,
while others are required to give up all? At night I can believe
shadows of aspen trees grope along the far side
of the fence. I have not gone to see. In autumn,
when aspen spread the earth gold, I can think
the grey skeleton sprawling across yellow grass
is a good thing, Chester’s fat sheep mindlessly
following its confines from one corner to the next,
to water, and back out toward the fence.
A completion, a perfect holding pattern. Then
always I see its direction: the aspen grove flowing
down the west hill, a twisted grey arm stretching
out toward the glistening splash of autumn color.
Pine Valley
1
While I was not watching
sunrise came with a ruby throat
and gold-flecked wings.
2
Blue
and a small wisp of cloud
above the dark pine.
A jaysquall
leaves a small bruise
on one corner
of sky.
3
Boiling coffee.
A blue enamel pot
nestled in warm coals
beside the cold
sliding water.
Sky so close
you fear
bumping your head.
4
A brown breaks surface
rising to wingshadow
drifting on the blue selvage
of pond.
5
Golden lace.
Sunrise pours slantwise
into clear water
through the blue spruce,
the deep tangle of pine
and purled woodsmoke.
6
I turned
and the earth hushed.
While I leaned into silence
a morning too vast to fathom
filled with light.
.
