Preparing for the Pico Duarte climb
with only one-half of a packing mule
allotted to personal belongings,
I had to choose between Bishop and Frost.
Frost would be perfect for the dialogue
I planned to have with nature, but Bishop
was addressing a similar landscape
in her Brazil poems. I weighed back and forth,
considering leaving a second pair
of hiking shoes or my long underwear.
Finally—I hate to say it—but I chose
solely in terms of weight: the paperback
Frost was lighter, smaller than Bishop,
and would fit in my jacket pocket if
the mule got tired and had to be relieved.
This choice led me to think of how canons
are formed, how books are chosen as the texts
to be carried down the generations.
Why Pound and not H.D.? And why, oh why,
Sir So-and-So and not more Sor Juana?
I’d like to think the basis for the choice
was on some better principle than mine,
but who knows? Especially when I peruse
my old Norton anthologies and note
the shameful absence of certain voices,
I wonder if they never existed
or if they were knocked out of the running
for some silliness like the writer’s sex?
Perhaps those who selected were like me
who let an ass choose my mountain canon.