The protagonist's mindset begins to change in the second half of the poem when the language and mechanics become dark and less certain. The whole poem up to this point has been in free verse, without punctuation and with sporadic capitalization, serving to set up what occurs later. The thought "he tried his eyes on the lake ospreys / would fall like valkyries" is broken up between lines 15 and 16 making the thought confusing. Especially with the lack of punctuation, the reader is at first unsure of how to read it, whether to use the phrase before "lake" as an introductory phrase or use "lake" to modify "ospreys." The image of the ospreys turned valkyries also enhances the darkness and confusion with the inclusion of negative language like "cut throat" (17), "smoke" and "boil" to represent the sunset (19). In the next stanza it seems that the man perceives nature to turn on him, when, where once he embraced the moon, it now "carved unknown totems/out...

Then the owls deride him (22), trees crowd in on him (23), and finally, the very winds turn the whole mountain into a weapon aimed against him when they blew, "shaping its peak to an arrowhead / poised" (25-27). The last, terrified thought in the poem shows the man's paranoia of nature and of death when "he could only / bar himself in and wait/for the great flint to come singing into his heart" (29, 30). It is in this moment the man's fear consumes him, causing him to envision nature itself coming to destroy him.
Throughout the poem, the language conveys the man's security, hope, and determination to hang on. The following stanzas tell of his struggles and hope to stay alive, his strength and determination to be rescued. But as the poem continues, the sloppy mechanics, frightening images, and negative language indicate the growing fear which rakes at him until it exposes the insanity…