How Much Earth
by Philip Levine
Torn into light, you woke wriggling
on a woman’s palm. Halved, quartered,
shredded to the wind, you were the life
that thrilled along the underbelly
of a stone. Stilled in the frozen pond
you rinsed heaven with a sigh.
How much earth is a man.
A wall fies down and roses
rush from its teeth; in the fists
of the hungry, cucumbers sleep
their lives away, under your nails
the ocean moans in its bed.
How much earth.
The great ice fields slip
and the broken veins of an eye
startle under light, a hand is planted
and the grave blooms upward
in sunlight and walks the roads.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- A Prayer For Artemis
- Woman In Front Of Poster Of Herself poem – Alice Notley
- Did you call me Love by Rohini bhatia singh
- Федор Тютчев – Каким венком нам увенчать
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабкор (Лбом пробив безграмотья горы)
- A Man Young And Old: III. The Mermaid by William Butler Yeats
- Tear of warm dew of mind by Seema Gupta
- On A Picture Of A Black Centaur By Edmund Dulac by William Butler Yeats
- Ein Yahav by Yehuda Amichai
- Coole Park, 1929 by William Butler Yeats
- England’s Answer by Rudyard Kipling
- To England poem – Alfred Austin
- Федор Сологуб – Когда я в бурном море плавал
- Robert Burns: Complimentary Versicles To Jessie Lewars: The Menagerie
- Robert Burns: Apology For Declining An Invitation To Dine:
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
Philip Levine ( 1928 – 2015) was an American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit. He taught for more than thirty years in the English department of California State University, Fresno and held teaching positions at other universities as well. He served on the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets from 2000 to 2006, and was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States for 2011–2012