Here is an outstanding poem by Philip Levine. As a wayward young man I had the most difficult time figuring a way in to life. Or, at least a way in that did not compromise every stitch of who I was. This strange life is still a peculiar struggle. And "a burned world" indeed. How did we all get so far off track, away from who and how we were really meant to be? How do we get back? I am thinking more and more seriously about taking to a cabin, sharpening my knives, bringing a hunting rifle and cane poles. What really is there to lose?

-- 

by Philip Levine

At Bessemer

 

19 years old and going nowhere,

I got a ride to Bessemer and walked

the night road toward Birmingham

passing dark groups of men cursing

the end of a week like every week.

Out of town I found a small grove

of trees, high narrow pines, and I

sat back against the trunk of one

as the first rains began slowly.

South, the lights of Bessemer glowed

as though a new sun rose there,

but it was midnight and another shift

tooled the rolling mills. I must

have slept awhile, for someone

else was there beside me. I could

see a cigarette's soft light,

and once a hand grazed mine, man

or woman's I never knew. Slowly

I could feel the darkness fill

my eyes and the dream that came was

of a bright world where sunlight

fell on the long even rows of houses

and I looked down from great height

at a burned world I believed

I never had to enter. When

the true sun rose I was stiff

and wet, and there beside me was

the small white proof that someone

rolled and smoked and left me there

unharmed, truly untouched.

A hundred yards off I could hear

cars on the highway. A life

was calling to be lived, but how

and why I had still to learn.