Fire On The Hills Poem by Robinson Jeffers

Try to find first rate poems with wild bird imagery. They are few and far between. I mean poems like Wallace Stevens' Sunday Morning or Florida by Elizabeth Bishop. I don't know why this is true. Wild birds were made for poetry. Thank goodness for Jeffers. He made up the slack.

The deer were bounding like blown leaves Under the smoke in front the roaring wave of the brush-fire; I thought of the smaller lives that were caught. - (Italian) : I cervi balzavano via come foglie al vento Fra il fumo, di fronte all'onda ruggente del fuoco; E ho pensato alle piccole creature che venivano prese.

The last line of this poem should read: 'The destruction that brings an eagle from heaven is better than mercy.'

This poem speaks volumes toward the natural way fire replenishes as it destroys. Jeffers understand the beauty of the bounding deer and the fire, actions and reactions to the way of nature, but he also feels a pang of guilt toward the glutted Eagles who have come down from both 'heaven' and the mountain's height to feast on the suddenly exposed creatures that make up part of the eagle's diet. Far less fatalistic than, say, 'Shine, Perishing Republic' (if indeed fatalism can be attached to that poem) , but no less objective and empirically clean by naturalistic standards, meaning those who observe nature rather than the literary period. Jeffers reveals his compassion without sacrificing his 'thy will be done' sort of comprehension of the greater universe. This is one poem of Jeffers that ought to be anthologized more often.