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The Stone Cutters by Robinson Jeffers

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you fore-defeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly:
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth dies, the brave sun
Die blind, his heart blackening:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey peace in old poems.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Monty James November 7, 2019, 8:13 AM

    The modern culture we live in does quite a lot to make me hate poetry, but you show me why I shouldn’t, Gerard. Thank you.

  • Vanderleun November 7, 2019, 10:08 AM

    Thanks Monty. I’ll try to keep doing that. In a dark time, some have to carry the candles.

  • downeasthillbilly November 7, 2019, 3:02 PM

    “Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy
    And the dogs that talk revolution,
    Drunk with talk, liars and believers.
    I believe in my tusks.
    Long live freedom and damn the ideologies,”
    Said the gamey black-maned boar
    Tusking the turf on Mal Paso Mountain.

  • Vanderleun November 7, 2019, 6:10 PM

    Well, hell, I love that so much I’m putting it in the sidebar.

  • downeasthillbilly November 8, 2019, 8:36 AM

    Small recompense for the furnishings I have found here, for the room in my head.