Help with William Stafford

[kelby_lake]

I can't find anything on one of his poems. It's called 'A Survey'.

Help?

[mono]

Oh, I cannot pass up talking of a local poet; a memorial still stands at the college where he taught, some 10 miles from me.
I own only a few of his books, and could not find "A Survey," but I planned on going to the bookstore tomorrow anyway, to stock up on some other books, too. I will do some research, unless you have a copy that you can post a fragment of for us.

[kelby_lake]

Thank you for replying- I'll put up the whole thing:

Down in the Frantic Mountains
they say a canyon winds
crammed with hysterical water
hushed by placid sands.

They tried to map that country
sent out a field boot crew,
but the river surged at night
and ripped the map in two...


Now only the wildcats know it,
patting a tentative paw,
soothing the hackles of ridges
pouring past rocks and away.

...
By night the wildcats pad by
gazing it quiet again.


I don't get all the wildcat stuff.

[mono]

Thank you for replying- I'll put up the whole thing
No problem. It seems I did not think when I asked you to post it, because it likely got published sometime between the 1960's-1980's, so you may want to "snip" it a bit, for those silly copywright laws (*winks to Logos and Scher* (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17515)).

William Stafford had a casual quality to his poetry that resembles conversation, as if one has eavesdropped between him and his friend, Robert Bly or Theodore Roethke, whispering to each other. I picture Stafford often sitting at his desk, writing his daily poem before the sun would rise, an act that popularized his work, during a time that no one could interrupt him.
Stafford cared greatly for the environment, and wrote of it frequently, his love for it, his wish to conserve it, and his, quite possibly, most famous poem "Traveling through the Dark" hauntingly details his reverence for nature, animals, and territory. "A Survey" clearly details his beliefs on explored land vs. unexplored land, and humankind's incessant desire to measure everything, explore everything, and often inhabit most of the land as well; in this slightly more rare poem, however, he pieces together a fictional plot (he did beautifully at storytelling) of the natives of nature and humankind working together to "survey" the land (the act of "sending out" wildcats).
The fact that he chose "wildcats" seems relevant, but not altogether incredibly important; I think what Stafford attempts to emphasize points out that the surveyors found the unexplored land of too severe conditions for them to explore, instead "sending in" natives (so to speak) to explore the land (as they always have) and survey it - however, as always, "[n]ow only the wildcats know it." The poet, I think, intends to write of some foreign territory remaining unspoiled and untouched by the boots of human feet, perhaps even for the purpose of surveying and measuring; instead, in the final stanza, Stafford writes of what remains there, what has always existed there (the sun, mountains, bucks, wildcats), and possibly what ought to remain there, undisturbed.

[kelby_lake]

Thanks :)