Denise Levertov

To lie back under the tallest
oldest trees. How far the stems
rise, rise
before ribs of shelter
open!

To live in the mercy of God. The complete
sentence too adequate, has no give.
Awe, not comfort. Stone, elbows of
stony wood beneath lenient
moss bed.

And awe suddenly
passing beyond itself. Becomes
a form of comfort.
Becomes the steady
air you glide on, arms
stretched like the wings of flying foxes.
To hear the multiple silence
of trees, the rainy
forest depths of their listening.

To float, upheld,
as salt water
would hold you,
once you dared.

To live in the mercy of God.

To feel vibrate the enraptured

waterfall flinging itself
unabating down and down
to clenched fists of rock.
Swiftness of plunge,
hour after year after century,
O or Ah
uninterrupted, voice
many-stranded.
To breathe
spray. The smoke of it.
Arcs
of steelwhite foam, glissades
of fugitive jade barely perceptible. Such passion—
rage or joy?
Thus, not mild, not temperate,
God’s love for the world. Vast
flood of mercy
flung on resistance.

[may it be so]

"but you take pleasure in the faces
of those who know they thirst."

-R

For Palm Sunday

There on the road
where many have gone out to meet you –
we now go.

Our eyes will widen when we realize this road
will see you through your suffering.
We are incomplete.
And it is as though you have resurrected
the ashes and turned them into palms (not
the other way around, like we do
these days);
now we wave them at you,
now we celebrate our redemption (and oh, how green!)
You are the Restorer,
and we, the restored.

I can feel your favour: it streams through
as chlorophyll – bringing me into being;
like something lush, and vibrant, and new each morning.
It streams through as blood running
from heart to vein;
you help me to breathe.

Now we breathe you,
Sensing you most acutely in
that which gives us life.

Now we lay ourselves
down on the road before you.

Will you be lifted by our submission?

changed

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going, I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone." 


-Merton

Canadian Poetry

Strong images evoked - poets arising
out of wheat fields
with the words of the French echoing around;
poets with salt in their eyebrows,
blown in from the east-coast wind.
Poets as products
of the indigenous, dark-skinned,
smooth-tongued people who bore this earth before us.
Verses, lines, and words come: a result of
the melodious language and the manner in which they sight the landscape, in
reverence, adoration, affection, intimacy.

They are our mothers.

We, their children.

[awe]

You are mystery and majesty
and a lone tree on a hill.
Restorer of imagination and impulse,
and Restrainer of this depth of feeling
that I deserve not to feel;
Your goodness: ever, inexplicably upon me.
There is a sky, above, enduring
that will always sing: "glory!"

empty heart

Water in the boat is the ruin of the boat,
but water under the boat is its support.
Since Solomon cast the desire for wealth out from his heart,
he didn't call himself by any name but "poor."
The stoppered jar, though in rough water,
floated because of its empty heart.
When the wind of poverty is in anyone,
she floats in peace on the waters of the world.


Mathnawi I