by Denise Levertov
In ‘nature’ there’s no choice —
flowers
swing their heads in the wind, sun & moon
are as they are. But we seem
almost to have it ( not just
available death )
It’s energy: a spider’s thread: not to
‘go on living’ but to quicken, to activate: extend:
Some have it, they force it —
with work or laughter or even
the act of buying, if that’s
all they can lay hands on —
the girls crowding the stores, where light,
colour, solid dreams are — what gay
desire! It’s their festival,
ring game, wassail, mystery.
It has no grace like that of
the grass, the humble rhythms, the
falling & rising of leaf and star;
it’s barely
a constant. Like salt:
take it or leave it
The ‘hewers of wood’ & so on; every damn
craftsman has it while he’s working
but it’s not
a question of work: some
shine with it, in repose. Maybe it is
response, the will to respond — ( ‘reason
can give nothing at all / like
the response to desire’ ) maybe
a gritting of the teeth, to go
just that much further, beyond the end
beyond whatever ends : to begin, to be, to defy.
- Share this Poem:
