Denise Levertov Quotes

Can you endure
life with two brides, bridegroom?

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

It is said he made his earth-journey, and lost what he sought. It is said they felled him and cut up his limbs for firewood. And it is said his head still sang and was swept out to sea singing.

The wind, the birds, do not sound poorer but clearer,
recalling our agony, and the way we danced.

One can anyway only be shown something one knows already, needs already. Showing anyone anything really amounts to removing the last thin film that prevents their seeing what they are looking at.

He himself must be the key, now, to the next door, the next terrors of freedom and joy.

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.

This great unknowing
is part of their holiness.

To serve the people, one must write for the ideal reader. Only for the ideal reader. And who or what is that ideal reader? God. One must imagine, One must deeply imagine

Each minute the last minute.

The world is
not with us enough
O taste and see

the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything all that lives
to the imagination’s tongue,

grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform

into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being

hungry, and plucking
the fruit.

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 not joking. I'm speaking of spirit. Not dogma but spirit. The Way.

Trying to remember old dreams. A voice. Who came in.
And meanwhile the rain, all day, all evening,
quiet steady sound. Before it grew too dark
watched the blue iris leaning under the rain,
the flame of the poppies guttered and went out.
A voice. Almost recalled. There have been times
the gods entered. Entered a room, a cave?
A long enclosure where I was, the fourth wall of it
too distant or too dark to see. The birds are silent,
no moths at the lit windows. Only a swaying rosebush
pierces the table’s reflection, raindrops gazing from it.
There have been hands laid on my shoulders.
What has been said to me,
how has my life replied?
The rain, the rain...

Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry. I who don't know the secret wrote the line.