run to the roots again...

Robinson Jeffers

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A little too abstract, a little too wise,
It is time for us to kiss the earth again,
It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies,
Let the rich life run to the roots again.
I will go to the lovely Sur Rivers
And dip my arms in them up to the shoulders.
I will find my accounting where the alder leaf quivers
In the ocean wind over the river boulders.
I will touch things and things and no more thoughts,
That breed like mouthless May-flies darkening the sky,
The insect clouds that blind our passionate hawks
So that they cannot strike, hardly can fly.
Things are the hawk’s food and noble is the mountain, Oh noble
Pico Blanco, steep sea-wave of marble.


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If you want your poetry anchored to the real world – time to kiss the earth ... to let the leaves rain ... to run to the roots – Jeffers is a solid read. “I will touch things and things and no more thoughts” is such a powerful line, my head refuses to stop ringing. What I wouldn’t give to have written those words. A seamless shift, on the hinge of the simile’s like, an eerie view of tiny creatures – a purpose so primal, a moving haiku – “darkening the sky”. With so few choices at hand, all action becomes absolute, perfect, timeless.