Thursday, August 25, 2011

A Gift, by Denise Levertov


Pyotr Iliych Tchaikovksy - Souvenir D'un Lieu Cher, Meditation
with Miron Polyakin (violin)

Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.



from Sands of the Well (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1996)
via panhala.net

4 comments:

Roxana said...

beautiful and true.
so touching, the music too (i listened!!!)

:-)

mythopolis said...

There is some kind of sweet sadness in the music and in the writing too. Roxana sent me this link, and it has been provocative to listen and read, and ponder life. Thanks.

Manuela said...

I believe you that you listened, dear Roxana :) - you always seem more surprised by that than I would be.

m-am gandit ca-ti va placea, cand am gasit poezia, da!

Manuela said...

thank you, mythopolis, and I am glad for your visit. Sweet sadness describes the feeling very well indeed!