Denise Levertov Poems

"The World is not something to
look at, it is something to be in."
Mark Rudman
...

What is green in me
darkens, muscadine.
If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to
...

Those groans men use
passing a woman on the street
or on the steps of the subway
...

I like to find
what's not found
at once, but lies
...

"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
...

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
...

Elves are no smaller
than men, and walk
as men do, in this world,
but with more grace than most,
...

An absolute
patience.
Trees stand
up to their knees in
...

Fully occupied with growing--that's
the amaryllis. Growing especially
at night: it would take
only a bit more patience than I've got
...

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:
...