Levertov, Denise

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type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script></div> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="the_secret"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <B>The Secret</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry. </B></div> <div> <B>I who don't know the secret wrote the line. They told me </B></div> <div> <B>(through a third person) they had found it but not what it was not even </B></div> <div> <B>what line it was. No doubt by now, more than a week later, they have forgotten the secret, </B></div> <div> <B>the line, the name of the poem. I love them for finding what I can't find, </B></div> <div> <B>and for loving me for the line I wrote, and for forgetting it so that </B></div> <div> <B>a thousand times, till death finds them, they may discover it again, in other lines </B></div> <div> <B>in other happenings. And for wanting to know it, for </B></div> <div> <B>assuming there is such a secret, yes, for that most of all.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</B></div> <div> <B> <A NAME="talking_to_grief__"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <B>Talking to Grief  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Ah, Grief, I should not treat you</B></div> <div> <B>like a homeless dog</B></div> <div> <B>who comes to the back door</B></div> <div> <B>for a crust, for a meatless bone.</B></div> <div> <B>I should trust you.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I should coax you</B></div> <div> <B>into the house and give you</B></div> <div> <B>your own corner,</B></div> <div> <B>a worn mat to lie on,</B></div> <div> <B>your own water dish.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>You think I don't know you've been living</B></div> <div> <B>under my porch.</B></div> <div> <B>You long for your real place to be readied</B></div> <div> <B>before winter comes. You need</B></div> <div> <B>your name,</B></div> <div> <B>your collar and tag. You need</B></div> <div> <B>the right to warn off intruders,</B></div> <div> <B>to consider</B></div> <div> <B>my house your own</B></div> <div> <B>and me your person</B></div> <div> <B>and yourself</B></div> <div> <B>my own dog.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------</B></div> <div> <B> <A NAME="in_mind___"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <B>In Mind</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#FFFFCC" FACE="5thGrader" ><B>   </B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>There's in my mind a woman</B></div> <div> <B>of innocence, unadorned but</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>fair-featured and smelling of</B></div> <div> <B>apples or grass. She wears</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>a utopian smock or shift, her hair</B></div> <div> <B>is light brown and smooth, and she</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>is kind and very clean without</B></div> <div> <B>ostentation-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>but she has</B></div> <div> <B>no imagination</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>And there's a</B></div> <div> <B>turbulent moon-ridden girl</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>or old woman, or both,</B></div> <div> <B>dressed in opals and rags, feathers</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>and torn taffeta,</B></div> <div> <B>who knows strange songs</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>but she is not kind.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Zeroing In</B></div> <div> <B>     </B></div> <div> <B>"I am a landscape," he said,</B></div> <div> <B>"a landscape and a person walking in that landscape.</B></div> <div> <B>There are daunting cliffs there,</B></div> <div> <B>and plains glad in their way</B></div> <div> <B>of brown monotony. But especially</B></div> <div> <B>there are sinkholes, places</B></div> <div> <B>of sudden terror, of small circumference</B></div> <div> <B>and malevolent depths."</B></div> <div> <B>"I know," she said. "When I set forth</B></div> <div> <B>to walk in myself, as it might be</B></div> <div> <B>on a fine afternoon, forgetting,</B></div> <div> <B>sooner or later I come to where sedge</B></div> <div> <B>and clumps of white flowers, rue perhaps,</B></div> <div> <B>mark the bogland, and I know</B></div> <div> <B>there are quagmires there that can pull you</B></div> <div> <B>down, and sink you in bubbling mud."</B></div> <div> <B>"We had an old dog," he told her, "when I was a boy,</B></div> <div> <B>a good dog, friendly. But there was an injured spot</B></div> <div> <B>on his head, if you happened</B></div> <div> <B>just to touch it he'd jump up yelping</B></div> <div> <B>and bite you. He bit a young child,</B></div> <div> <B>they had to take him to the vet's and destroy him."</B></div> <div> <B>"No one knows where it is," she said,</B></div> <div> <B>"and even by accident no one touches it:</B></div> <div> <B>It's inside my landscape, and only I, making my way</B></div> <div> <B>preoccupied through my life, crossing my hills,</B></div> <div> <B>sleeping on green moss of my own woods,</B></div> <div> <B>I myself without warning touch it,</B></div> <div> <B>and leap up at myself--"</B></div> <div> <B>"--or flinch back</B></div> <div> <B>just in time."</B></div> <div> <B>                "Yes, we learn that</B></div> <div> <B>It's not terror, it's pain we're talking about:</B></div> <div> <B>those places in us, like your dog's bruised head,</B></div> <div> <B>that are bruised forever, that time</B></div> <div> <B>never assuages, never."</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Intrusion</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>After I had cut off my hands</B></div> <div> <B>and grown new ones</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>something my former hands had longed for</B></div> <div> <B>came and asked to be rocked.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>After my plucked out eyes</B></div> <div> <B>had withered, and new ones grown</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>something my former eyes had wept for</B></div> <div> <B>came asking to be pitied.</B></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>