Denise Levertov Poems

Did the people of Viet Nam
use lanterns of stone?
Did they hold ceremonies
to reverence the opening of buds?
...

When I found the door
I found the vine leaves
speaking among themselves in abundant
whispers.
...

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
...

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,
...

Some people,
no matter what you give them,
still want the moon.
...

Among the blight-killed eucalypts, among
trees and bushes rusted by Christmas frosts,
the yards and hillsides exhausted by five years of drought,
...

Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.
...

The fire in leaf and grass
so green it seems
each summer the last summer.
...

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
...