JUAN HIGERA CREEK

by: Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)

      EITHER your face, Higera, nor your deeds
      Are known to me; and death these many years
      Retains you, under grass or forest-mould.
      Only a rivulet bears your name: it runs
      Deep-hidden in undeciduous redwood shade
      And trunks by age made holy, streaming down
      A valley of the Santa Lucian hills.
      There have I stopped, and though the unclouded sun
      Flew high in loftiest heaven, no dapple of light
      Flecked the large trunks below the leaves intense,
      Nor flickered on your creek: murmuring it sought
      The River of the South, which oceanward
      Would sweep it down. I drank sweet water there,
      And blessed your immortality. Not bronze,
      Higera, nor yet marble cool the thirst;
      Let bronze and marble of the rich and proud
      Secure the names; your monument will last
      Longer, of living water forest-pure.

"Juan Higera Creek" is reprinted from Californians. Robinson Jeffers. New York: Macmillan, 1916.

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