Quotes from Denise Levertov

As Andersen told it, the tale was not for young children, not even called 'The Little'-just, 'The Mermaid.' It's about love and grief, a myth of longing and sacrifice, far closer, say, to Goethe's Parable than to any jovial folktale, much less to today's manufactured juvenile distractions.

This great unknowing is part of their holiness.

In the dark I rest, unready for the light which dawns day after day, eager to be shared. Black silk, shelter me. I need more of the night before I open eyes and heart to illumination. I must still grow in the dark like a root not ready, not ready at all.

You have come to the shore. There are no instructions.

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

There's in my mind a... turbulent moon-ridden girl or old woman, or both, dressed in opals and rags, feathers and torn taffeta, who knows strange songs but she is not kind.

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.

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 study of Last Things; facing my mirror—no longer young, the news—always of death, the dogs—rising from sleep and clamoring and howling, howling.... ("Seeing For a Moment")

Wear scarlet! Tear the green lemons off the tree! I don't want to forget who I am, what has burned in me, and hang limp and clean, an empty dress -

Yes, he is here in this open field, in sunlight, among the few young trees set out to modify the bare facts-- he's here, but only because we are here. When we go, he goes with us to be your hands that never do violence, your eyes that wonder, your lives that daily praise life by living it, by laughter. He is never alone here, never cold in the field of graves.

But for us the road unfurls itself, we don't stop walking, we know there is far to go.

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 deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.

Fire he sang, that trees fear, and I, a tree, rejoiced in its flames. New buds broke forth from me though it was full summer. As though his lyre (now I knew its name) were both frost and fire, its chords flamed up to the crown of me. I was seed again. I was fern in the swamp. I was coal. ("A Tree Telling of Orpheus")

There comes a time when only anger is love.

The poem has a social effect of some kind whether or not the poet wills it to have. It has a kenetic force, it sets in motion...elements in the reader that would otherwise remain stagnant.

I am, a shadow that grows longer as the sun moves, drawn out on a thread of wonder. If I bear burdens they begin to be remembered as gifts, goods, a basket of bread that hurts my shoulders but closes me in fragrance. I can eat as I go. ("Stepping Westward")

The yellow moon dreamily tipping buttons of light down among the leaves. Marimba, marimba - from beyond the black street. Somebody dancing, somebody getting the hell outta here. Shadows of cats weave round the treetrunks, the exposed knotty roots. ("Scenes from the Life of the Peppertrees")

Some people, no matter what you give them, still want the moon. The bread, the salt, white meat and dark meat, still hungry. The marriage bed and the cradle, still empty arms. You give them land, their own earth under their feet, still they take to the roads. And water: dig them the deepest, still it's not deep enough to drink the moon from.

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, drip, of darkness glimmers on the stone to show you how your longing waits alone. What alchemy shines from under that shut door, spinning out gold from the hollow of the heart? ("The Sea's Wash In The Hollow Of The Heart")

An awe so quiet I don't know when it began. A gratitude had begun to sing in me. Was there some moment dividing song from no song? When does dewfall begin? When does night fold its arms over our hearts to cherish them? When is daybreak?

Rain-diamonds, this winter morning, embellish the tangle of unpruned pear-tree twigs; each solitaire, placed, it appears, with considered judgement, bears the light beneath the rifted clouds - the invisible shared out in endless abundance.

The world is not with us enough.

Ah, grief, I should not treat you like a homeless dog who comes in the back door for a crust, for a meatless bone. I should trust you. I should coax you into the house and give you your own corner, a worn mat to lie on, your own water dish. You think I don't know you've been living under my porch. You long for a real place to be readied before winter comes. You need the right to warn off intruders, to consider my house your own and me your person and yourself my own dog.

The Broken Sandal" Dreamed the thong of my sandal broke. Nothing to hold it to my foot. How shall I walk? Barefoot? The sharp stones, the dirt. I would hobble. And– Where was I going? Where was I going I can't go to now, unless hurting? Where am I standing, if I'm to stand still now?