This Valentine’s Day, one of America’s greatest poets passed away. Rest in peace, Philip Levine. You will be missed.
The Way Down
On the way down
blue lupine at the roadside,
red bud scattered
down the mountain, tiny
white jump-ups hiding
under foot, the first push
of wild oats like froth
at the field’s edge. The wind blows
through everything, the crowned
peaks above us, the soft floor
of the valley below,
the humps of rock
walking down the world.
On the way down
from the trackless snow fields
where a blackbird
eyed me from
a solitary pine, knowing
I would go back the way
I came, shaking my head,
and the blue glitter of ice
was like the darkness
of winter nights, deepening
before it would change,
and the only voice
my own saying
Goodbye.
Can you hear?
the air now says. I hold
my breath and listen
and a finger of dirt thaws,
a river drains
from a snow drop
and rages down
my cheeks, our father
the wind hums
a prayer through my mouth
and answers in the oat,
and now the tight rows of seed
bow to the earth
and hold on and hold on.
-Philip Levine, 1971