Portland Parish/ The Blue Mountains

                                                 (from Negro Mountain)

She said,

Get your bearings.

No shape in my gap, not

now. From now

on, it goes

without

saying. If

this is allied to “the negro

character” it’s far

from original—I’d only get

to where we came out of the mountains and

hit the sea. And view

the old coast too, from

the road, the route described

by its indentations—“One bay

after another”—until the road turned inland

again. Civilization’s

tattered

in such. Far

be it from me. One’s

close to nothing.

Something,

though, to the coast—

“My affection

hath an unknowne bottome, like the Bay

of Portugall,” some-

one else had been made

to say.