Hooded Night
At night, toward dawn, all the lights of the shore have died,
And the wind moves. Moves in the dark
The sleeping power of the ocean, no more beastlike than manlike,
Not to be compared; itself and itself.
Its breath blown shoreward huddles the world with a fog; no stars
Dance in heaven; no ship's light glances.
I see the heavy granite bodies of the rocks of the headland,
That were ancient here before Egypt had pyramids,
Bulk on the gray of the sky, and beyond them the jets of young trees
I planted the year of the Versailles peace.
But here is the final unridiculous peace. Before the first man
Here were the stones, the ocean, the cypresses,
And the pallid region in the stone-rough dome of fog where the moon
Falls on the west. Here is reality.
The other is a spectral episode: after the inquisitive animal's
Amusements are quiet: the dark glory.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Tor House
If you should look for this place after a handful
of lifetimes:
Perhaps of my planted forest a few
May stand yet, dark-leaved Australians or the coast
cypress, haggard
With storm-drift; but fire and the axe are devils.
Look for foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers
had the art
To make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.
But if you should look in your idleness after ten
thousand years:
It is the granite knoll on the granite
And lava tongue in the midst of the bay, by the mouth
of the Carmel
River-valley, these four will remain
In the change of names. You will know it by the wild
sea-fragrance of wind
Though the ocean may have climbed or retired a little;
You will know it by the valley inland that our sun
and our moon were born from
Before the poles changed; and Orion in December
Evenings was strung in the throat of the valley like
a lamp-lighted bridge.
Come in the morning you will see white gulls
Weaving a dance over blue water, the wane of the moon
Their dance-companion, a ghost walking
By daylight, but wider and whiter than any bird in
the world.
My ghost you needn't look for; it is probably
Here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not
dancing on wind
With the mad wings and the day moon.
Submitted by Holt
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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The Healing Wind
In this healing wind
all our scars of the
past are blown away,
torn away and scattered
around the earth,
and all our demons are
lifted and carried off
in the vortex of
the wind funnel
till there is nothing
left but these rocks
and the ocean,
and our hearts feel
at peace once more,
as our eyes
scan the distant horizon,
where the ocean
meets the night sky,
where the moon
hangs low, casting
its tremulous glow
upon the water.
In this healing wind
all our thoughts
are scattered in the
silent multitude of stars
that shine upon us
like new blossoms…
yes, I know we've been
through a lot
all these years,
and the loneliness
and the pain
seemed unbearable
at times,
but you don't have
to say a thing to me
right now,
because the healing wind
turned it all around,
gave us new hope
and new purpose
and new sails-
and breathing in
this cool night air,
we feel renewed
and alive again,
as we return
to what we always
knew as our home,
resting upon these
rocks, as the ocean
waves gently baptize
our feet.
poem by Alexander Shaumyan
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A Dance For The Night Sky
Let's dance to this song
Just this once, we lose all bonds
Our bodies, cascading
We make the world our dance floor
To this final waltz, we sway like waves
Beneath the envious stars
Hearts bursting like fireworks on New Year's Eve
Every star, we claim as ours
We make our mark
Under the moon we dance
The only spark in the night
That could ever be brighter than the moonlight
I am the burning red, and you lush as gold
We illuminate the night's endless fold
A duet of colors, to light the desolate night sky
Brighter than the moon and stars, you and I
For just one night
Take my hand
My last chance
Lasts in this dance under the night sky
For I swear on my last breath
With you I'll make the moon and stars weep
As we dance the most beautiful waltz
The constellations will ever see
poem by Dan Debello
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Across The Ocean
traveled through the lost
showered in the mist
purple skies blue
sparks among the ocean
whistles the wind
as the sand twirl
birds fly in the same direction
peeked in the sunset
spot the light
ocean waves slow motion
dolphins speaks
suddenly butterflies in my stomach
tikkles me
the enviroment vanished
as the light seem to get smaller
the ocean wave moves faster
sun falls alseep
awaken the night
butterflies cross the ocean
while im burried in shock
missing you
across the ocean
poem by James Bost
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Night
The ebb slips from the rock, the sunken
Tide-rocks lift streaming shoulders
Out of the slack, the slow west
Sombering its torch; a ship's light
Shows faintly, far out,
Over the weight of the prone ocean
On the low cloud.
Over the dark mountain, over the dark pinewood,
Down the long dark valley along the shrunken river,
Returns the splendor without rays, the shining of shadow,
Peace-bringer, the matrix of all shining and quieter of shining.
Where the shore widens on the bay she opens dark wings
And the ocean accepts her glory. O soul worshipful of her
You like the ocean have grave depths where she dwells always,
And the film of waves above that takes the sun takes also
Her, with more love. The sun-lovers have a blond favorite,
A father of lights and noises, wars, weeping and laughter,
Hot labor, lust and delight and the other blemishes. Quietness
Flows from her deeper fountain; and he will die; and she is
immortal.
Far off from here the slender
Flocks of the mountain forest
Move among stems like towers
Of the old redwoods to the stream,
No twig crackling; dip shy
Wild muzzles into the mountain water
Among the dark ferns.
O passionately at peace you being secure will pardon
The blasphemies of glowworms, the lamp in my tower, the
fretfulness
Of cities, the cressets of the planets, the pride of the stars.
This August night in a rift of cloud Antares reddens,
The great one, the ancient torch, a lord among lost children,
The earth's orbit doubled would not girdle his greatness, one fire
Globed, out of grasp of the mind enormous; but to you O Night
What? Not a spark? What flicker of a spark in the faint far
glimmer
Of a lost fire dying in the desert, dim coals of a sand-pit the
Bedouins
Wandered from at dawn . . . Ah singing prayer to what gulfs
tempted
Suddenly are you more lost? To us the near-hand mountain
Be a measure of height, the tide-worn cliff at the sea-gate a
measure of continuance.
The tide, moving the night's
Vastness with lonely voices,
Turns, the deep dark-shining
Pacific leans on the land,
Feeling his cold strength
To the outmost margins: you Night will resume
The stars in your time.
O passionately at peace when will that tide draw shoreward?
Truly the spouting fountains of light, Antares, Arcturus,
Tire of their flow, they sing one song but they think silence.
The striding winter giant Orion shines, and dreams darkness.
And life, the flicker of men and moths and the wolf on the hill,
Though furious for continuance, passionately feeding, passionately
Remaking itself upon its mates, remembers deep inward
The calm mother, the quietness of the womb and the egg,
The primal and the latter silences: dear Night it is memory
Prophesies, prophecy that remembers, the charm of the dark.
And I and my people, we are willing to love the four-score years
Heartily; but as a sailor loves the sea, when the helm is for harbor.
Have men's minds changed,
Or the rock hidden in the deep of the waters of the soul
Broken the surface? A few centuries
Gone by, was none dared not to people
The darkness beyond the stars with harps and habitations.
But now, dear is the truth. Life is grown sweeter and lonelier,
And death is no evil.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Bellambi's Maid
Amongst the thunder-splintered caves
On Ocean's long and windy shore,
I catch the voice of dying waves
Below the ridges old and hoar;
The spray descends in silver showers,
And lovely whispers come and go,
Like echoes from the happy hours
I never more may hope to know!
The low mimosa droops with locks
Of yellow hair, in dewy glade,
While far above the caverned rocks
I hear the dark Bellambi's Maid!
The moonlight dreams upon the sail
That drives the restless ship to sea;
The clouds troop past the mountain vale,
And sink like spirits down the lee;
The foggy peak of Corrimal,
Uplifted, bears the pallid glow
That streams from yonder airy hall
And robes the sleeping hills below;
The wandering meteors of the sky
Beneath the distant waters wade,
While mystic music hurries by -
The songs of dark Bellambi's Maid!
Why comes your voice, you lonely One,
Along the wild harp's wailing strings?
Have not our hours of meeting gone,
Like fading dreams on phantom wings?
Are not the grasses round your grave
Yet springing green and fresh to view?
And does the gleam on Ocean's wave
Tide gladness now to me and you?
Oh! cold and cheerless falls the night
On withered hearts and hopes decayed:
And I have seen but little light
Since died the dark Bellambi's Maid!
poem by Henry Kendall
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Black Is The Dark Of Night
BLACK IS THE DARK OF THE NIGHT
Black is the dark of night
Deep is the quiet and calm –
Waking before the world does
Brings a special peace –
I write these lines
And begin the day
When others still sleeping -
All the world is mine at peace
And when the morning light comes
I will be astonished by the beauty
Of God’s world.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Dreamer Of Dreams
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.
'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.
We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .
Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.
Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.
Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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The House Of Dust: Part 04: 07: The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.
'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces,
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins. . . . '
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.
We hear him and take him among us like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister mass, we ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, with word upon murmured word,
We flow, we descend, we turn. . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves on among us like light, like evening air . . .
Good night! good night! good night! we go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.
Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky.
We have built a city of towers.
Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light. They have shaken a burden of hours. . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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The House Of Dust: Part 01: 01: The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.
'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.
We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .
Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.
Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.
Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Dark Becomes Dawn
Dark as pitch - Dawn spreads light
Dark as dead - Dawn expires graves
Dark withers - Dawn freshness wears
Dark un-paths - Dawn re-strides.
Dark dapples gray - Dawn paints days
Dark specters doubt - Dawn assuredness' gate
Dark limitless plain - Dawn corrals night
Dark swifts shadows - Dawn hastens un-obscures.
Dark dissolves pace - Dawn zeniths one's range
Dark devours - Dawn sun rises
Dark bends down relief - Dawn uplifts sight
Dark dismantles - Dawn scatters golden arrows.
Dark de-flames - Dawn matches day
Dark invisibles - Dawn globes light
Dark unfolds dark dreams - Dawn un-sanctions screams
Dark submissively retires - Dawn crimson splendor.
'2008'
poem by Robert Sheridan
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Your Like A Ocean
Your eyes are like a ocean,
Your hiar is the waves that lift the ocean,
Your heart is the core of the animal ocean that feels it up with love for the lovely ocean
Your ful of emotion for your own ocean
Your smile just lights the ocean
By the night it calm and quite even the oceans getting so bright by the day and soul is quite
You will be mine tonight
Me and you can sit by the ocean and you are so close to a ocean as I can get and I love you just like a ocean me and you toghether and the ocean's flour will be your blanket for you.
poem by Clayton Moore
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Peace
Peace (it's what I prayer for)
Peace (oh my)
Peace
Peace (all around the world)
Peace (it's what I pray for)
Peace (oh my)
Peace
Peace (hurry)
Come on in this house children
The war has started
Light the candles right now
It's about to be darkness, oh yeah
There's no telling when the sun will shine again, no
When it's over there's a question asked
Who wins? Who wins?
Spirit (ooh)
Through the land (ooh)
Spirit of peace (ooh)
Oh yeah (ooh)
Spirit move (ooh)
Oh move (ooh)
Oh yeah (ooh)
Heaven send down (ooh)
Peace (it's what I prayer for)
Peace (oh my)
Peace
Peace (all around the world)
Peace (it's what I pray for)
Peace (oh my)
Peace
Peace (hurry)
Turn your head, close your eyes
There's people out there dying, oh
With so much wealth in the land
Why is this thing staving? Oh
As I look over this place
There's so much hatred
If I could I'd pack my bags
And hitch hike to heaven, yeah
Spirit move (ooh)
Oh move (ooh)
Spirit move (ooh)
All through the land (ooh)
Won't you move (ooh)
Oh move, oh move, oh move (ooh)
Oh move, yeah (ooh)
This is what I prayer for (ooh)
Peace (for peace)
Peace (all around the world)
Peace (whoa)
Peace (I pray for peace)
Peace (oh peace)
Peace (oh peace)
Peace (heaven shine your light)
Peace
Shine your light on me
Shine your light on me (let it shine)
Shine your light on me (oh)
Shine your light on me (shine your light)
Shine your light on me (on me)
Shine your light on me (for the World)
Shine your light on me (to see) (pray for me...)
Shine your light on me (let it shine)
Shine your light on me (real bright)
Shine your light on me (through the day)
Shine your light on me (through the night)
Shine your light on me (and send us your peace)
Peace (that's what I pray for)
Peace (oh my)
Peace (oh)
Peace (all around the World)
Peace (it's what I pray for)
Peace (peace)
Peace (peace)
Peace (all around the World)
Peace (peace for the children)
Peace (peace for the land)
Peace (peace for all women)
Peace (and peace for all men)
Peace (put peace in our hearts)
Peace (let us know you care)
Peace (take the storm away)
Peace (send your peace everywhere) (shine your light on me)
Peace (in the valleys) (shine your light on me)
Peace (on the land) (shine your light on me)
Peace (in the homes) (shine your light on me)
Peace (oh yeah) (shine your light on me)
Peace (in Somalia) (shine your light on me)
Peace (Liberia) (shine your light on me)
Peace (Etheopia) (shine your light on me)
Peace (all of Africa) (shine your light on me)
Peace (our soldiers) (shine your light on me)
Peace (the prisons) (shine your light on me)
Peace (the nations) (shine your light on me)
Peace (religion) (shine your light on me)
Peace (the churches) (shine your light on me)
Peace (the community) (shine your light on me)
Peace (justice) (shine your light on me) (send your peace)
Peace (peace) (shine your light on me) (oh heaven, send it down to me)
Peace (then ourselves) (shine your light on me)
Peace (peace for wars) (shine your light on me) (send your peace)
Peace (peace in relationships) (shine your light on me) (oh heaven, send it down to me)
Peace (peace in the brother hood) (shine your light on me) (send your peace)
Peace (oh peace) (shine your light on me) (oh heaven, send it down to me)
Peace (oh peace) (shine your light on me)
Peace (oh peace) (shine your light on me) (send your peace) (oh heaven, send it down to me)
Peace (oh peace) (shine your light on me)
Peace (oh peace) (shine your light on me) (for heavens)
Peace (oh peace) (shine your light on me)
Peace (oh peace) (shine your light on me) (send your peace) (oh heaven, send it down to me)
Shine your light on me (oh heaven) (send your peace, send it down to me)
Shine your light on me (your peace)
Shine your light on me (oh heaven) (send your peace, send it down to me)
Shine your light on me (your peace)
Shine your light on me (your peace)
Shine your light on me (oh heaven)
Shine your light on me (oh heaven) (send your peace, send it down to me)
song performed by by R. Kelly
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Burn For You
Now that I have found you
In the coolth of your evening smile
The shade of your parasol
And your love flows through me
Though I drink at your pool
I burn for you, I burn for
You and I are lovers
When night time folds around our bed
In peace we sleep entwined
And your love flows through me
Though an ocean soothes my head
I burn for you, I burn for
Stars will fall from dark skies
As ancient rocks are turning
Quiet fills the room
And your love flows through me
Though I lie here so still
I burn for you, I burn for you
I burn...
song performed by by Sting
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Grey Ocean
While walking on her beach
I met an Ocean
This event will stay with me forever
This is why
While looking very closely at the Ocean,
I noticed that it was Grey
This startled me
I had thought that all Oceans were blue
Not Grey
I looked at the Ocean and said
'Why on earth are you Grey? '
It let out a cry which stated
'Well, because I'm made of stones! '
I asked it why it was stone
It then told me long tale
About how children use to throw rocks at the Ocean
It said that the rocks slowly filled up the Ocean
This anger me greatly
So now
Everytime I see a child throwing rocks at oceans
I tell them the story of the Grey Ocean
They never believe me.
poem by David Corman
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Granite And Cypress
White-maned, wide-throated, the heavy-shouldered children of
the wind leap at the sea-cliff.
The invisible falcon
Brooded on water and bred them in wide waste places, in a bridechamber
wide to the stars' eyes
In the center of the ocean,
Where no prows pass nor island is lifted ... the sea beyond
Lobos is whitened with the falcon's
Passage, he is here now,
The sky is one cloud, his wing-feathers hiss in the white grass,
my sapling cypresses writhing
In the fury of his passage
Dare not dream of their centuries of future endurance of tempest.
(I have granite and cypress,
Both long-lasting,
Planted in the earth; but the granite sea-boulders are prey to no
hawk's wing, they have taken worse pounding,
Like me they remember
Old wars and are quiet; for we think that the future is one piece
with the past, we wonder why tree-tops
And people are so shaken.)
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Mistress Of All Time
(enlightened woman)
She dances on the seven seas
Dances on the ocean
Sunlight on her golden hair
Shapes of pure emotion
Her voice is heard like
Crystal words across the sky
She moves just like an angel
Shes the mistress of all time
Her sun pours down like liquid gold
To chase away the sorrows
Her clothes are like a million stars
Made of tears and rainbows
And all the while
Her senses smile into my life
She moves just like an angel
Shes a mistress of all time
Just like the restless
To a mission bell
I must run to her
Meet her everywhere
As her music fills the universe
She leaves the dancing visions
Of her image on the water
And precious stones upon the shore
From every distant corner
Like diamonds in the light
They shine beyond the stars
She moves just like an angel
Shes the mistress of all time
She dances on the seven seas
Dances on the ocean
Sunlight on her golden hair
Shapes of pure emotion
Her voice is heard like
Crystal words across the sky
She moves me like an angel
Shes the mistress of all time
She moves me like an angel
A voice of pure emotion
Her tears are like a rainbow
song performed by by Uriah Heep
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Ocean’s Power
The dark ocean waves,
clashing amongst each other,
above the ocean floor
that dose not have a bother
Not a worry in its nonexistent mind,
not a care, but only to its swimming friends,
but when a disaster strikes
the creatures will fear there world is at end
But not for any to fear,
the ocean has a special power,
a power that humans can not comprehend,
so unique it causes them to cower
The ocean releases its power to heal all,
to heal, from the dark waves to the ocean floor,
the process may take from days to centuries,
but when all is done, it is left for all to adore.
Modern Love XXXII (Okie the zen golden retreiver)
Evening star gives eternal kisses of fireflies
to the dark face of the moon
the joyful moon cracks an ocher grin
and falls in love with a reflection
on the green river
the red tails of dancing fireflies
escape from the moon's mouth
into the adoration
Racoons take off their masks
preparing for bed
the river politely refuses
to carry the lunar mirror
leaves it at the waterfall's door
who returns it to the evening star
during the moon's void
a mocking bird awakens the meditating trees
the rocks hidden under the falls miss the sun
the sun's lover lives an hour of light years away
the lunar grin, reflection, evening star
seek hiding places from the dawn
the sudden stillness gives birth
to thousand of mohican souls
who dance in concentric circles
while running down whitmore falls
the evening star ashamed of history
fades into the blue
the moon finds great happiness
in disappearing
the unseen ocean opens arms
and awaits the moon's image
arias of water sing
eternal mantras
where mind's heart dances
joyous silence of a single note
a breath whispering by
between the longing of the ocean
and the moon's love of infinite reflections
and the adoring evening star
an open window creates a wall
of antigue white and mauve moths
as a golden retreiver leaps from a black rock
chasing a teasing blue heron who flies
up over black trees into the bend of the river
creating dawn, as the golden bellyflops laughing
poem by Liberatore Suffoletta
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Apology For Bad Dreams
I
In the purple light, heavy with redwood, the slopes drop seaward,
Headlong convexities of forest, drawn in together to the steep
ravine. Below, on the sea-cliff,
A lonely clearing; a little field of corn by the streamside; a roof
under spared trees. Then the ocean
Like a great stone someone has cut to a sharp edge and polished
to shining. Beyond it, the fountain
And furnace of incredible light flowing up from the sunk sun.
In the little clearing a woman
Is punishing a horse; she had tied the halter to a sapling at the
edge of the wood, but when the great whip
Clung to the flanks the creature kicked so hard she feared he
would snap the halter; she called from the house
The young man her son; who fetched a chain tie-rope, they
working together
Noosed the small rusty links round the horse's tongue
And tied him by the swollen tongue to the tree.
Seen from this height they are shrunk to insect size.
Out of all human relation. You cannot distinguish
The blood dripping from where the chain is fastened,
The beast shuddering; but the thrust neck and the legs
Far apart. You can see the whip fall on the flanks . . .
The gesture of the arm. You cannot see the face of the woman.
The enormous light beats up out of the west across the cloud-bars
of the trade-wind. The ocean
Darkens, the high clouds brighten, the hills darken together.
Unbridled and unbelievable beauty
Covers the evening world . . . not covers, grows apparent out
of it, as Venus down there grows out
From the lit sky. What said the prophet? 'I create good: and
I create evil: I am the Lord.'
II
This coast crying out for tragedy like all beautiful places,
(The quiet ones ask for quieter suffering: but here the granite cliff
the gaunt cypresses crown
Demands what victim? The dykes of red lava and black what
Titan? The hills like pointed flames
Beyond Soberanes, the terrible peaks of the bare hills under the
sun, what immolation? )
This coast crying out for tragedy like all beautiful places: and
like the passionate spirit of humanity
Pain for its bread: God's, many victims', the painful deaths, the
horrible transfigurements: I said in my heart,
'Better invent than suffer: imagine victims
Lest your own flesh be chosen the agonist, or you
Martyr some creature to the beauty of the place.' And I said,
'Burn sacrifices once a year to magic
Horror away from the house, this little house here
You have built over the ocean with your own hands
Beside the standing boulders: for what are we,
The beast that walks upright, with speaking lips
And little hair, to think we should always be fed,
Sheltered, intact, and self-controlled? We sooner more liable
Than the other animals. Pain and terror, the insanities of desire;
not accidents but essential,
And crowd up from the core:' I imagined victims for those
wolves, I made them phantoms to follow,
They have hunted the phantoms and missed the house. It is not
good to forget over what gulfs the spirit
Of the beauty of humanity, the petal of a lost flower blown
seaward by the night-wind, floats to its quietness.
III
Boulders blunted like an old bear's teeth break up from the
headland; below them
All the soil is thick with shells, the tide-rock feasts of a dead
people.
Here the granite flanks are scarred with ancient fire, the ghosts
of the tribe
Crouch in the nights beside the ghost of a fire, they try to remember
the sunlight,
Light has died out of their skies. These have paid something for
the future
Luck of the country, while we living keep old griefs in memory:
though God's
Envy is not a likely fountain of ruin, to forget evils calls down
Sudden reminders from the cloud: remembered deaths be our
redeemers;
Imagined victims our salvation: white as the half moon at midnight
Someone flamelike passed me, saying, 'I am Tamar Cauldwell,
I have my desire,'
Then the voice of the sea returned, when she had gone by, the
stars to their towers.
. . . Beautiful country burn again, Point Pinos down to the
Sur Rivers
Burn as before with bitter wonders, land and ocean and the
Carmel water.
IV
He brays humanity in a mortar to bring the savor
From the bruised root: a man having bad dreams, who invents
victims, is only the ape of that God.
He washes it out with tears and many waters, calcines it with
fire in the red crucible,
Deforms it, makes it horrible to itself: the spirit flies out and
stands naked, he sees the spirit,
He takes it in the naked ecstasy; it breaks in his hand, the atom
is broken, the power that massed it
Cries to the power that moves the stars, 'I have come home to
myself, behold me.
I bruised myself in the flint mortar and burnt me
In the red shell, I tortured myself, I flew forth,
Stood naked of myself and broke me in fragments,
And here am I moving the stars that are me.'
I have seen these ways of God: I know of no reason
For fire and change and torture and the old returnings.
He being sufficient might be still. I think they admit no reason;
they are the ways of my love.
Unmeasured power, incredible passion, enormous craft: no
thought apparent but burns darkly
Smothered with its own smoke in the human brain-vault: no
thought outside: a certain measure in phenomena:
The fountains of the boiling stars, the flowers on the foreland,
the ever-returning roses of dawn.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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