Poet Dan Demarse writes the LYRICAL: “The aim of the poem is simple enough, that, is, a celebration of having an aim towards which to journey, perhaps as TS Eliot said, ‘Having to construct something / Upon which to rejoice.’ In this case, we dive straight into metaphor: the small amount of warmth given from a fire constructed by a man, or figure, limping through his nameless tundra. In a similar way do we scale the poet, as readers, to the light of her meanings, and leave all else a frigid plain, unknowing. I like to think that there is a sense of, if not futility, then the odd sort of Stevensian dominant blank here. A desperate crisis to convey the imagination. Some place where from one cannot escape but must, by doing the thing, making, and warming oneself by the fire of creative impulse.” 

Poet Dan Demarse

ONE OF THE MAGUS

Blank tundra. And spruce trees up to the tip with
Frost, taken by the snow’s moil. Miles going still to
The icy gorge for him: place of respite or death, that
Avalanches have basked over over ages, letting nothing
In ever in trails of snow. And an insignificant man wanting
To get there, aching his axe and snowshoes through the white

Plain, nearly violet plain. Where goes he? And the beard
Specked too with white flecks. Where goes he? One of the
Magus whom is blessed by having journey, one who rakes

The flat frost. Go to him, inside his head. Find
A particular shelter in his going on himself, for what plans
For favors could he have in doing this, a winter storm? He favors

His right leg. Holds the pain in dominion to still it out of aggression,
Which would have been, if the left leg ignored merely. The spasm
Of a cleft muscle buckles him at the hamstrings. He hunkers,

Makes a little fire out in the wide, white place.
How must he grapple upon receiving one tough question
After another, from his heart; how must he wish to leave this
Spacious brokenness, seeing his own; how meandering the slate

Of these conditions; how marvelous the head between dusky,
Red ears, hovering over that single light!