Denise Levertov
Web
Intricate and untraceable Weaving and interweaving, Dark strand with light: Designed, beyond All spiderly contrivance, To link, not to entrap: Elation, grief, joy, contrition, entwined; Shaking, changing, Forever Forming, Transforming: All praise, All praise
To the Snake
Green Snake, when I hung you round my neck And stroked your cold, pulsing throat As you hissed to me, glinting Arrowy gold scales, and I felt The weight of you on my shoulders,
The Great Black Heron
Since I stroll in the woods more often Than on this frequented path, it’s usually Trees I observe; but among fellow humans What I like best is to see an old woman Fishing alone
An Embroidery
Rose Red’s hair is brown as fur And shines in firelight as she prepares Supper of honey and apples, curds and whey, For the bear, and leaves it ready On the hearth-stone. Rose White’s
The Thread
Something is very gently, Invisibly, silently, Pulling at me-a thread Or net of threads Finer than cobweb and as Elastic. I haven’t tried The strength of it. No barbed hook Pierced and tore me.
Looking, Walking, Being
“The World is not something to Look at, it is something to be in.” Mark Rudman I look and look. Looking’s a way of being: one becomes, Sometimes, a pair of eyes walking. Walking
Triple Feature
Innocent decision: to enjoy. And the pathos Of hopefulness, of his solicitude: he in mended serape, She having plaited carefully Magenta ribbons into her hair, The baby a round half-hidden shape Slung in her
The Breathing
An absolute Patience. Trees stand Up to their knees in Fog. The fog Slowly flows Uphill. White Cobwebs, the grass Leaning where deer Have looked for apples. The woods From brook to where The
What Were They Like?
Did the people of Viet Nam Use lanterns of stone? Did they hold ceremonies To reverence the opening of buds? Were they inclined to quiet laughter? Did they use bone and ivory, Jade and
St. Peter and the Angel
Delivered out of raw continual pain, Smell of darkness, groans of those others To whom he was chained Unchained, and led Past the sleepers, Door after door silently opening Out! And along a long
The Métier of Blossoming
Fully occupied with growing that’s The amaryllis. Growing especially At night: it would take Only a bit more patience than I’ve got To sit keeping watch with it till daylight; The naked eye could
The Garden Wall
Bricks of the wall, So much older than the house – Taken I think from a farm pulled down When the street was built – Narrow bricks of another century. Modestly, though laid with
Living
The fire in leaf and grass So green it seems Each summer the last summer. The wind blowing, the leaves Shivering in the sun, Each day the last day. A red salamander So cold
The Dog of Art
That dog with daisies for eyes Who flashes forth Flame of his very self at every bark Is the Dog of Art. Worked in wool, his blind eyes Look inward to caverns and jewels
Settling
I was welcomed here-clear gold Of late summer, of opening autumn, The dawn eagle sunning himself on the highest tree, The mountain revealing herself unclouded, her snow Tinted apricot as she looked west, Tolerant,
The Mutes
Those groans men use Passing a woman on the street Or on the steps of the subway To tell her she is a female And their flesh knows it, Are they a sort of
September 1961
This is the year the old ones, The old great ones Leave us alone on the road. The road leads to the sea. We have the words in our pockets, Obscure directions. The old
On the Mystery of the Incarnation
It’s when we face for a moment The worst our kind can do, and shudder to know The taint in our own selves, that awe Cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart: Not
Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell
Down through the tomb’s inward arch He has shouldered out into Limbo To gather them, dazed, from dreamless slumber: The merciful dead, the prophets, The innocents just His own age and those Unnumbered others
Zeroing In
“I am a landscape,” he said, “a landscape and a person walking in that landscape. There are daunting cliffs there, And plains glad in their way Of brown monotony. But especially There are sinkholes,
Illustrious Ancestors
The Rav Of Northern White Russia declined, In his youth, to learn the Language of birds, because The extraneous did not interest him; nevertheless When he grew old it was found He understood them
Sojourns in the Parallel World
We live our lives of human passions, Cruelties, dreams, concepts, Crimes and the exercise of virtue In and beside a world devoid Of our preoccupations, free From apprehension though affected, Certainly, by our actions.
On a Theme by Thomas Merton
“Adam, where are you?” God’s hands Palpate darkness, the void That is Adam’s inattention, His confused attention to everything, Impassioned by multiplicity, his despair. Multiplicity, his despair; God’s hands Enacting blindness. Like a child
From the Roof
This wild night, gathering the washing as if it were flowers animal vines twisting over the line and Slapping my face lightly, soundless merriment In the gesticulations of shirtsleeves, I recall out of my
Hymn To Eros
O Eros, silently smiling one, hear me. Let the shadow of thy wings Brush me. Let thy presence Enfold me, as if darkness Were swandown. Let me see that darkness Lamp in hand, This
Losing Track
Long after you have swung back Away from me I think you are still with me: You come in close to the shore On the tide And nudge me awake the way A boat
The Sea's Wash In The Hollow Of The Heart
Turn from that road’s beguiling ease; return To your hunger’s turret. Enter, climb the stair Chill with disuse, where the croaking toad of time Regards from shimmering eyes your slow ascent And the drip,
Aware
When I found the door I found the vine leaves Speaking among themselves in abundant Whispers. My presence made them Hush their green breath, Embarrassed, the way Humans stand up, buttoning their jackets, Acting
Talking to Grief
Ah, Grief, I should not treat you Like a homeless dog Who comes to the back door For a crust, for a meatless bone. I should trust you. I should coax you Into the
Everything That Acts Is Actual
From the tawny light From the rainy nights From the imagination finding Itself and more than itself Alone and more than alone At the bottom of the well where the moon lives, Can you
Adam's Complaint
Some people, No matter what you give them, Still want the moon. The bread, The salt, White meat and dark, Still hungry. The marriage bed And the cradle, Still empty arms. You give them
People at Night
A night that cuts between you and you And you and you and you And me : jostles us apart, a man elbowing Through a crowd. We won’t Look for each other, either- Wander
Contraband
The tree of knowledge was the tree of reason. That’s why the taste of it Drove us from Eden. That fruit Was meant to be dried and milled to a fine powder For use
Wanting The Moon
Not the moon. A flower On the other side of the water. The water sweeps past in flood, Dragging a whole tree by the hair, A barn, a bridge. The flower Sings on the
An excerpt from "Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus"
iiGloria Praise the wet snow Falling early. Praise the shadow My neighor’s chimney casts on the tile roof Even this gray October day that should, they say, Have been golden. Praise The invisible sun
In Mind
There’s in my mind a woman Of innocence, unadorned but Fair-featured and smelling of Apples or grass. She wears A utopian smock or shift, her hair Is light brown and smooth, and she Is
Pleasures
I like to find What’s not found At once, but lies Within something of another nature, In repose, distinct. Gull feathers of glass, hidden In white pulp: the bones of squid Which I pull
Seeing For A Moment
I thought I was growing wings- It was a cocoon. I thought, now is the time to step Into the fire- It was deep water. Eschatology is a word I learned As a child:
The Elves
Elves are no smaller Than men, and walk As men do, in this world, But with more grace than most, And are not immortal. Their beauty sets them aside From other men and from
The Ache Of Marriage
The ache of marriage: Thigh and tongue, beloved, Are heavy with it, It throbs in the teeth We look for communion And are turned away, beloved, Each and each It is leviathan and we
The Rainwalkers
An old man whose black face Shines golden-brown as wet pebbles Under the streetlamp, is walking two mongrel dogs of dis- Proportionate size, in the rain, In the relaxed early-evening avenue. The small sleek
The Well
At sixteen I believed the moonlight Could change me if it would. I moved my head On the pillow, even moved my bed As the moon slowly Crossed the open lattice. I wanted beauty,
Variation On A Theme By Rilke
A certain day became a presence to me; There it was, confronting me a sky, air, light: A being. And before it started to descend From the height of noon, it leaned over And
Intrusion
After I had cut off my hands And grown new ones Something my former hands had longed for Came and asked to be rocked. After my plucked out eyes Had withered, and new ones
The Secret
Two girls discover The secret of life In a sudden line of Poetry. I who don’t know the Secret wrote The line. They Told me (through a third person) They had found it But
A Tree Telling of Orpheus
White dawn. Stillness. When the rippling began I took it for sea-wind, coming to our valley with rumors of salt, of treeless horizons. But the white fog Didn’t stir; the leaves of my brothers
Celebration
Brilliant, this day – a young virtuoso of a day. Morning shadow cut by sharpest scissors, Deft hands. And every prodigy of green – Whether it’s ferns or lichens or needles Or impatient points
Psalm Concerning the Castle
Let me be at the place of the castle. Let the castle be within me. Let it rise foursquare from the moat’s ring. Let the moat’s waters reflect green plumage of ducks, let the
The Quest
High, hollowed in green Above the rocks of reason Lies the crater lake Whose ice the dreamer breaks To find a summer season. ‘He will plunge like a plummet down Far into hungry tides’
In California During the Gulf War
Among the blight-killed eucalypts, among Trees and bushes rusted by Christmas frosts, The yards and hillsides exhausted by five years of drought, Certain airy white blossoms punctually Reappeared, and dense clusters of pale pink,
To the Reader
As you read, a white bear leisurely Pees, dyeing the snow Saffron, And as you read, many gods Lie among lianas: eyes of obsidian Are watching the generations of leaves, And as you read
Wedding-Ring
My wedding-ring lies in a basket As if at the bottom of a well. Nothing will come to fish it back up And onto my finger again. It lies Among keys to abandoned houses,
Stepping Westward
What is green in me Darkens, muscadine. If woman is inconstant, Good, I am faithful to Ebb and flow, I fall In season and now Is a time of ripening. If her part Is
The Avowal
As swimmers dare To lie face to the sky And water bears them, As hawks rest upon air And air sustains them, So would I learn to attain Freefall, and float Into Creator Spirit’s