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5.0 out of 5 stars
Mahatma Denise, Jan 24 2004
I miss Denise Levertov. I never knew her personally, but she spoke to me through her poetry in ways that few others have. I still remember how stunned I was to hear of her death--several months after the fact, in casual conversation with Deborah Larsen, a great-souled poet in her own right.I've been rereading during these bleak but beautiful winter months Levertov's posthumous poems. To my mind, they offer some of the best work she ever did. They continue her themes of yearning for something that can't quite be uttered, her love for the particular, her striving to reach a level of awareness before which the heart of being will be revealed, and her concerns for justice and for the environment. But now there's a poignancy, a nostalgia, an anticipation--and perhaps an acceptance--to her verse that suggest a woman awaiting the end. I read her words--her sighs, really--and my soul expands just a little bit more than it would've. One poem especially touches me--"Memory demands so much." Part of it is a fitting swansong for Levertov: Take me flying before
you vanish, leaf, before
I have time to remember you,
intent instead on being
in the midst of that flight,
of those unforeseeable words. Farewell, Denise. And thanks.
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