Who hears the humming
of rocks at great height,
the long steady drone
of granite holding together,
the strumming of obsidian
to itself? I go among
the stones stooping
and pecking like a
sparrow, imagining
the glacier’s final push
resounding still. In
a freezing mountain
stream, my hand opens
scratched and raw and
flutters strangely,
more like an animal
or wild blossom in wind
than any part of me. Great
fields of stone
stretching away under
a slate sky, their single
flower the flower
of my right hand.
Last night
the fire died into itself
black stick by stick
and the dark came out
of my eyes flooding
everything. I
slept alone and dreamed
of you in an old house
back home among
your country people,
among the dead, not
any living one besides
yourself. I woke
scared by the gasping
of a wild one, scared
by my own breath, and
slowly calmed
remembering your weight
beside me all these
years, and here and
there an eye of stone
gleamed with the warm light
of an absent star.
Today
in this high clear room
of the world, I squat
to the life of rocks
jewelled in the stream
or whispering
like shards. What fears
are still held locked
in the veins till the last
fire, and who will calm
us then under a gold sky
that will be all of earth?
Two miles below on the burning
summer plains, you go
about your life one
more day. I give you
almond blossoms
for your hair, your hair
that will be white, I give
the world my worn-out breath
on an old tune, I give
it all I have
and take it back again.
“Breath,” 1991 by Philip Levine; from New Selected Poems by Philip Levine. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Such as the lobster
cracking loose
from its exoskeleton
after moons of moulting,
or the viper that squeezes
out of the skin
of its remembrance,
this oracle invites you
to rewild yourself,
to unbox, detox, and de-
clutter your blood.
Break free from the mold
you made for yourself,
for the animal
in you that craves
routines like sugar,
addicted to the stress
of your comforts. Sling
your arm around the waist
of your discomfort
like it’s a new lover
in these uncharted
seas and distances
untraversed. Take
and give glee.
Summon surprise.
Something whim-
sical this way comes.
It smells something
like wishes wrapped
in wind as you
trod the winding path
through
the forests
of your interior.
Be warned. You will
bewilder beloveds.
Hush. Some
events are better
experienced than
explained. Take soul.
Your joy is your job;
and yours alone.
Hire your
self every day.
Climb into your traveling
shoes knowing that
there, too, will
be dancing.
Copyright © 2025 by Samantha Thornhill. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 31, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.