“Alone” by Philip Levine (1928-2015)
Sunset, and the olive grove flames
on the far hill. We descend
into the lunging shadows
of goat grass, and the air
deepens like smoke.
You were behind me, but when I turned
there was the wrangling of crows
and the long grass rising in the wind
and the swelling tips of grain
turning to water under a black sky.
All around me the thousand
small denials of the day
rose like insects to the flaming
of an old truth, someone alone
following a broken trail of stones
toward the deep and starless river.
live in the layers 