Robert Creeley: Heroes / William Henry Jackson: The Mountains and the Desert

.

The Annie. "First Boat Ever Launched on Yellowstone Lake." Reported to first be used on June 29, 1871: U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, Yellowstone Series, 1871, Vol. III (Hayden Survey)

In those stories the hero

is beyond himself into the next

thing, be it those labors

of Hercules, or Aeneas going into death.



I thought the instant of the one humanness

in Virgil's plan of it

was that it was of course human enough to die,

yet to come back, as he said, hoc opus, hic labor est.



That was the Cumaean Sibyl speaking.

This is Robert Creeley, and Virgil

is dead now two thousand years, yet Hercules

and the Aeneid, yet all that industrious wis-



dom lives in the way the mountains

and the desert are waiting

for the heroes, and death also

can still propose the old labors.

Robert Creeley: Heroes, from For Love, 1960

Yellowstone Lake. "Mary's Bay": U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, Yellowstone Series, 1871, Vol. III (Hayden Survey)

Reeds Rock, near Sherman, [Wyoming,] forms an excellent illustration of the style of weathering of the granites, characteristic of this region. These massive piles, like the ruins of old castles, are scattered all over the summits of the Black Hills, and the difference in the texture of the rock is such as to give a most pleasing variety of outline. They were once angular, cube-like masses, and have been worn to their present forms by the process of disintegration by exfoliation. Albany County, Wyoming. 1869

Giants Club, a rock pinnacle near Green River Station. Sweetwater County, Wyoming, 1869

"Grand Canyon of the Colorado." [Possibly view in Lower Granite Gorge, Grand Canyon of the Colorado River.] Men in foreground. Mohave County, Arizona, c. 1883

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Old Faithful in Upper Geyser Basin in eruption [probably viewed from the side nearest the Firehole River]: U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, 1878 (Hayden Survey)

Pulpit Terraces. Mammoth Hot Springs. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, c. 1883

The Upper Twin Lake. Lake County, Colorado, 1875

Dale Creek Canyon, a view looking south from near the bridge. A characteristic view of the summit of the Black Hills, showing the castle-like granite boulders and scattered pines, the deep canyon with its pleasant vale, and the sparkling trout stream, glittering in the sunlight. Albany County, Wyoming, 1869

Photos by William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) for United States Geological Surveys (U. S. Geological Survey Photographic Library)