Robinson Jeffers Examines a Yoyo

Here’s a profound and humorous reflection on how Robinson Jeffers sees mystical magnificence and predatory violence in the most mundane of things, by California poet Kevin Jones:


It is a thing of grace and possibility this dynamic orb:
A metaphor and a microcosm of the earth, its turnings and returnings,
Embodying the Eastern philosophers’ yin and yang, the western theologian’s
Light and dark, and bound all and brought to fruition by this hempen
Umbilical cord—the Great Mother at last freed from eons of mythical
Dreaming and here, here, palpable, bright, useful in my very hand.

For aside from the mystical nature of this ingenious machine, I see
A much more practical aspect. This is not merely a tool for contemplation,
A toy for a spring-fevered and wayward child. No, it has come to me,
Sure as the vision of a hawk when the wind clears the sky off Point Lobos,
This is a tool for the hunt. I see one of the old ones, in a tree, or atop a cliff,
Waiting to drop this on passing prey, giving the animal, or an enemy, the quick
And sacred gift. Yes, I am told the device’s inventors did this very thing.
But I am sure they cooked theirs before they ate it.

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