The selection for this week comes from Poet Robinson JeffersShine, Perishing Republic
Robinson Jeffers
While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity,
heavily thickening to empire.
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances,
ripeness and deca-dence; and home to the mother.
You making haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stub-bornly long or sudden.
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:
shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thick-ening center;
corruption never has been compulsory.
When the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught--they say
God, when he walked on earth.
Source: The Poems of Robinson Jeffers
