Stegner

He seems so distant to us these days,
Not just in his farmboy recollections--
Tales stitched atop sere, Midwesterly lives--
But also in his social dissections,
With external hubbubs repercussing
In the mind's private nave,
Images sharp and clearly focused,
Yet flipped, chamber projection-style.
Our remoteness tints his compositions
With redshift flecks of antiquation,
But it's our aloofness, never his,
Exaggerating the interval,
In time, in culture, in attitudes;
And we regret our loss of contact
With those compelling bypathed worlds
That were his spheres of narrative,
That engirdle us, too, in retrospect.