Robinson Jeffers
Robinson Jeffers
John Robinson Jefferswas an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. Much of Jeffers' poetry was written in narrative and epic form, but he is also known for his shorter verse and is considered an icon of the environmental movement. Influential and highly regarded in some circles, despite or because of his philosophy of "inhumanism," Jeffers believed that transcending conflict required human concerns to be de-emphasized in favor of the boundless whole. This led him to...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth10 January 1887
CityPittsburgh, PA
CountryUnited States of America
...Science and mathematics Run parallel to reality, they symbolize it, they squint at it, They never touch it: consider what an explosion Would rock the bones of men into little white fragments and unsky the world If any mind for a moment touch truth.
Justice and mercy/ Are human dreams, they do not concern the birds nor the fish nor eternal God.
Seagulls . . . slim yachts of the element.
Only the drum is confident, it thinks the world has not changed
Hear the music, the thunder of the wings. Love the wild swan.
As for me, I would rather be a worm in a wild apple than a son of man. But we are what we are, and we might remember not to hate any person, for all are vicious; And not to be astonished at any evil, all are deserved; And not to fear death; it is the only way to be cleansed.
They import and they consume reality.
Oh heavy change. The world deteriorates like a rotting apple, worms and a skin.
Pleasure is the carrot dangled to lead the ass to market; or the precipice.
Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.
Well: the day is a poem but too much Like one of Jeffers's, crusted with blood and barbaric omens Painful to excess, inhuman as a hawk's cry.
The love of freedom has been the quality of Western man.
We might remember ... not to fear death; it is the only way to be cleansed.
God is a lion that comes in the night. God is a hawk gliding among the stars-- If all the stars and the earth, and the living flesh of the night that flows in between them, and whatever is beyond them Were that one bird. He has a bloody beak and harsh talons, he pounces and tears.