A Poet Reflects

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”

—Kahlil Gibran,  from The Prophet (Alfred A. Knopf, 1923)

Do you want the earth to be heaven?
Then pray, go down on your knees
as though a king stood before you,
and pray to become all you’ll
never be, a drop of sea water,
a small hurtling flame across the sky,
a fine flake of dust that moves
at evening like smoke at great height
above the earth and sees it all.

—Philip Levine, closing lines to “Ashes” from Philip Levine: New Selected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1992)

geopsych:

“The earth is not a dead body, but is inhabited by a spirit that is its life and soul. All created things, minerals included, draw their strength from the earth spirit. This spirit is life, it is nourished by the stars, and it gives nourishment to all the living things it shelters in its womb.”

—Basilius Valentinus, 15th Century Benedictine monk and alchemist.

growing-orbits:

“What on earth can you do on this earth but catch at whatever comes near you, with both your fingers, until your fingers are broken?”

—Tennessee Williams, from Orpheus Descending (New Directions, 1958)