“It Is Time for Us to Kiss the Earth Again”

. . . I entered the life of the brown forest
And the great life of the ancient peaks, the patience of stone,
I felt the changes in the veins
In the throat of the mountain, a grain in many centuries, we
have our own time, not yours; and I was the stream
Draining the mountain wood; and I the stag drinking; and
I was the stars,
Boiling with light, wandering alone, each one the lord of
his own summit; and I was the darkness
Outside the stars, I included them, they were a part of me.
I was mankind also, a moving lichen
On the cheek of the round stone. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I have fallen in love outward.

Robinson Jeffers ‘The Tower Beyond Tragedy’

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