The poet Philip Levine died Saturday. Although I should have, I’d not known his work but since then have enjoyed reading some of it and listening to recordings of him speaking, like this wonderful conversation with Bill Moyer. His poem “Our Valley,” in particular, struck me, especially the line

“You have to remember this isn’t your land.
It belongs to no one, like the sea you once lived beside
and thought was yours.”

So often I catch myself talking about “my flowers” or something similar and, thankfully, usually end up seeing the real relationship I have with life. “Call it our life” seems such a wonderful shorthand that so often goes off the rails.

These aerial photographs I’ve made of various places on “my” planet came to mind as I read his words “worship the mountains as they dissolve in dust.”

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17 Feb This entry was published on February 17, 2015 at 9:24 am. It’s filed under John Snell, John Snell Photographer, Patterns, Photograph and tagged aerial photography, Bill Moyer, John Snell, John Snell Photographer, Our Valley, Philip Levine, Photography, Poem, poet. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.