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Denise Levertov Quotes
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And I
in terror
but not in doubt of
what I must do
in anguish, in haste,
wrenched from the earth root after root,
the soil heaving and cracking, the moss tearing asunder —
and behind me the others: my brothers
forgotten since dawn. In the forest
they too had heard,
and were pulling their roots in pain
out of a thousand years' layers of dead leaves,
rolling the rocks away,
breaking themselves
out of
their depths.
Denise Levertov
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Then as he sang
it was no longer sounds only that made the music:
he spoke, and as no tree listens I listened, and language
came into my roots
out of the earth,
into my bark
out of the air,
into the pores of my greenest shoots
gently as dew
and there was no word he sang but I knew its meaning.
Denise Levertov
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We call it 'Nature'; only reluctantly
admitting ourselves to be 'Nature' too.
Denise Levertov
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Delivered out of raw continual pain,
smell of darkness, groans of those others
to whom he was chained — unchained, and led
past the sleepers,
door after door silently opening —
out!
Denise Levertov
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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")
Denise Levertov
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One of the obligations of the writer, and perhaps especially of the poet, is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language.
Denise Levertov
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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.
Denise Levertov
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He himself must be
the key, now, to the next door,
the next terrors of freedom and joy.
Denise Levertov
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You can live for years next door
to a big pinetree [sic], honored to have
so venerable a neighbor, even
when it sheds needles all over your flowers
or wakes you, dropping big cones
onto your deck at still of night.
Denise Levertov
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He told of journeys,
of where sun and moon go while we stand in dark,
of an earth-journey he dreamed he would take some day
deeper than roots...
He told of the dreams of man, wars, passions, griefs,
and I, a tree, understood words – ah, it seemed
my thick bark would split like a sapling's that
grew too fast in the spring
when a late frost wounds it.
Denise Levertov
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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.
Denise Levertov
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Quote of the day
Now if the harvest is over, And the world cold, Give me the bonus of laughter, As I lose hold.
John Betjeman
Denise Levertov
Creative Commons
Born:
October 24, 1923
Died:
December 20, 1997
(aged 74)
Bio:
Denise Levertov was a British-born American poet.
Known for:
Breathing the Water (1987)
This Great Unknowing: Last Poems
Sands of the Well (1996)
The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov
Most used words:
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sang
roots
earth
fire
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door
dawn
forest
grass
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poetry
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