Leaps of nerve, heart — cries of communion: if there is bliss, it has been already and will be; out- reaching, utterly. Blind to itself, flooded with… - Denise Levertov

The poet does not use poetry, but is at the service of poetry. To use it is to misuse it.

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.

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.