Kiss The Earth Again
A little too abstract, a little too wise, / It is time for us to kiss the earth again,
Robinson Jeffers wrote these lines from Tor House, the stone home he built with his own hands on the rocky coast of Carmel, California, deliberately turning away from the crowded intellectual life of cities. Living close to the Pacific cliffs and hawks he loved, he grew wary of a modern mind trapped in words, opinions, and abstraction, cut off from the physical ground beneath it. Written in the early 1930s, as industrial life pulled people further from direct contact with nature, the poem calls for a return to touch, river water, and stone. It speaks to simplicity now because the pull toward overthinking and endless commentary has only grown stronger since his time.
Reflection
Jeffers believed thinking often replaces real contact with the physical world. What simple physical action can I take today?