The End of the World

By Dana Gioia b. 1950 Dana Gioia

“We're going,” they said, “to the end of the world.”

So they stopped the car where the river curled,

And we scrambled down beneath the bridge

On the gravel track of a narrow ridge.

We tramped for miles on a wooded walk

Where dog-hobble grew on its twisted stalk.

Then we stopped to rest on the pine-needle floor

While two ospreys watched from an oak by the shore.

We came to a bend, where the river grew wide

And green mountains rose on the opposite side.

My guides moved back. I stood alone,

As the current streaked over smooth flat stone.

Shelf by stone shelf the river fell.

The white water goosetailed with eddying swell.

Faster and louder the current dropped

Till it reached a cliff, and the trail stopped.

I stood at the edge where the mist ascended,

My journey done where the world ended.

I looked downstream. There was nothing but sky,

The sound of the water, and the water’s reply.

Source: Interrogations at Noon (Graywolf Press, 2001)

Biography

It seems almost a requirement for a poet to have an unconventional résumé, but Dana Gioia’s is perhaps notable for being so conventionally unpoetic. A graduate of Stanford Business School, Gioia claims to be “the only person, in history, who went to business school to be a poet.” He later rose to become a vice president at General Foods, where he marketed products such as Kool-Aid. These experiences in the corporate world, Gioia . . .

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