Life From The Lifeless
Spirits and illusions have died,
The naked mind lives
In the beauty of inanimate things.
Flowers wither, grass fades, trees wilt,
The forest is burnt;
The rock is not burnt.
The deer starve, the winter birds
Die on their twigs and lie
In the blue dawns in the snow.
Men suffer want and become
Curiously ignoble; as prosperity
Made them curiously vile.
But look how noble the world is,
The lonely-flowing waters, the secret-
Keeping stones, the flowing sky.
By Robinson Jeffers
Contemplating The Human Direction 