Gary Snyder's Turtle Island boasts many impressive and intriguing poems, however, in my humble opinion, I discovered a few that to me, left the greatest impact. One of these poems was none other than Pine Tree Tops located on page 33. While at first glance this poem is rather short, the image it constructed in my mind reminded me very much of my eight years spent living in Idaho. Let me explain I mean in greater detail below.
Within the first few lines, the following few words stuck out to me: "in the blue night, frost haze, the sky glows". These lines gave me a vivid image of my early teens spent out in the resort town of McCall, Idaho. Back then, I used to visit this wonderful paradise twice a year. Once for the entirety the summer, and one during the winter season for two weeks. It truly was a magical place for a number of reasons, but for the sake of staying on the topic at hand, I won't bore you with the details. In the third, fourth, and fifth lines: "pine tree tops, bend snow-blue, fade, into sky, frost starlight", images of the ice covered glacier lake surrounded by snow caped fir/pine trees all came flooding back to me. I couldn't believe how just a short few words written on a page could spark something so deeply ingrained within my memory.
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