The ache of marriage: thigh and tongue, beloved, are heavy with it, it throbs in the teeth We look for communion and are turned away, beloved, each… - Denise Levertov

A certain day became a presence to me; there it was, confronting me - a sky, air, light: a being. And before it started to descend from the height of noon, it leaned over and struck my shoulder as if with the flat of a sword, granting me honor and a task. The day's blow rang out, metallic - or it was I, a bell awakened, and what I heard was my whole self saying and singing what it knew: I can.

FOR THE NEW YEAR, 1981

I have a small grain of hope — one small crystal that gleams clear
colors out of transparency.
I need more.
I break off a fragment to send you.
Please take this grain of a grain of hope so that mine won’t shrink.
Please share your fragment so that yours will grow.
Only so, by division, will hope increase, like a clump of irises, which will cease to flower unless you distribute the clustered roots, unlikely source — clumsy and earth-covered — of grace.

Each minute the last minute.