Philip Levine Poems

The last of day gathers
in the yellow parlor
and drifts like fine dust
across the face of
...

Green fingers
holding the hillside,
mustard whipping in
the sea winds, one blood-bright
...

He made a line on the blackboard,
one bold stroke from right to left
diagonally downward and stood back
to ask, looking as always at no one
...

People sit numbly at the counter
waiting for breakfast or service.
Today it's Hartford, Connecticut
more than twenty-five years after
...

Dawn coming in over the fields
of darkness takes me by surprise
and I look up from my solitary road
pleased not to be alone, the birds
...

The ship that took my mother to Ellis Island
Eighty-three years ago was named "The Mercy."
She remembers trying to eat a banana
without first peeling it and seeing her first orange
...

Shake out my pockets! Harken to the call
Of that calm voice that makes no sound at all!
Take of me all you can; my average weight
May make amends for this, my low estate.
...

Iron growing in the dark,
it dreams all night long
and will not work. A flower
that hates God, a child
...

Remember how unimportant
they seemed, growing loosely
in the open fields we crossed
on the way to school. We
...

Numb, stiff, broken by no sleep,
I keep night watch. Looking for
signs to quiet fear, I creep
closer to his bed and hear
...