Letter from the Mountains, James K. Baxter, Analysis, Summary, Style, Themes

Letter from the Mountains, James K. Baxter, Analysis, Summary, Style, Themes

"Letter from the Mountains" by James K. Baxter is a reflective poem about the speaker's sense of ease and connection to nature while staying in an old rabbiters' hut in the mountains. The poem contrasts the city and its shallow relationships with the natural world and deeper connections. The speaker reflects on the true dreams that come to them in this setting but refuses to explain them. The poem ends with an image of tears from faces of stone, suggesting the interconnectedness of all things in nature. Letter from the Mountains There was a message. I have forgotten it. There was a journey to make. It did not come to anything. But these nights, my friend, under the iron roof Of this old rabbiters' hut where the traps Are still hanging up on nails, Lying in a dry bunk, I feel strangely at ease. The true dreams, those longed-for strangers, Begin to come to me through the gates of horn. I will not explain them. But the city, all that other life In which we crept sad…