Making Light Of It
by Philip Levine
I call out a secret name, the name
of the angel who guards my sleep,
and light grows in the east, a new light
like no other, as soft as the petals
of the blown rose in late summer.
Yes, it is late summer in the West.
Even the grasses climbing the Sierras
reach for the next outcropping of rock
with tough, burned fingers. The thistle
sheds its royal robes and quivers
awake in the hot winds off the sun.
A cloudless sky fills my room, the room
I was born in and where my father sleeps
his long dark sleep guarding the name
he shared with me. I can follow the day
to the black rags and corners it will
scatter to because someone always
goes ahead burning the little candle
of his breath, making light of it all.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Relations by Sunil Sharma
- Culver Dell And The Squire by William Barnes
- They Feed They Lion by Philip Levine
- Николай Карамзин – Соловей, галки и вороны
- Кондратий Рылеев – Н. М. Тевяшовой на предложение ее, дабы я написал стихи на Надежду
- Words Of Love Forevermore by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- A Question Answered poem – Alfred Austin
- After Love by Sara Teasdale
- Robert Burns: Remorse: Fragment
- Robert Burns: Willie Brew’d A Peck O’ Maut:
- Огюст Барбье – Бук
- Владимир Маяковский – Смотри, рабочий! Вот о чем сегодня речь (Главполитпросвет №166)
- Bound for your distant home poem – Alexander Pushkin
- An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- Epigram : The Cottager And His Landlord. A Fable (Translated From Milton) by William Cowper
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