Mountains, a moment's earth-waves rising and hollowing; the
earth too's an ephermerid; the stars—
Short-lived as grass the stars quicken in the nebula and dry in
their summer, they spiral
Blind up space, scattered black seeds of a future; nothing lives
long, the whole sky's
Recurrences tick the seconds of the hours of the ages of the gulf
before birth, and the gulf
After death is like dated: to labor eighty years in a notch of
eternity is nothing too tiresome,
Enormous repose after, enormous repose before, the flash of
activity.
Surely you never have dreamed the incredible depths were
prologue and epilogue merely
To the surface play in the sun, the instant of life, what is called
life? I fancy
That silence is the thing, this noise a found word for it;
interjection, a jump of the breath at that silence;
Stars burn, grass grows, men breathe: as a man finding treasure
says "Ah!" but the treasure's the essence;
Before the man spoke it was there, and after he has spoken he
gathers it, inexhaustible treasure.
Artwork
Birth of the World 2020
48 x 36 inches
oil on canvas
Gary Brewer @garywinstonbrewer
Poem
The Treasure 1925
The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers
Robinson Jeffers
Explore more in Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2021
Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2021
Curated by members of the Durden and Ray curatorial collective
Exhibition Team
Steven Wolkoff
Alexandra Wiesenfeld
Eugene Ahn
Artists
Nicole Belle, Gary Brewer, Gul Cagin, Joe Davidson, Mariquita “Micki” Davis, Danny Angel Escalante, Nancy Evans, Rebecca Farr, Leslie Foster, Christine Frerichs, Gajin Fujita, Iva Gueorguieva, Hasef, Mike Hazel, Regina Herod, Kiel Johnson, Aline Mare, Stephanie Mercado, Sandeep Mukherjee, Hung Viet Nguyen, Elizabeth Preger, Max Presneill, Bruce Richards, Colin Roberts, Karrie Ross, Orly Ruaimi, Debra Scacco, Sonja Schenk, Greg Schenk, Coleen Sterritt, Devon Tsuno, Rodrigo Valenzuela, Marnie Weber, Lisa Wedgeworth, Liat Yossifor, HK Zamani