Scraps of moon, by Denise Levertov

Gabriel Fauré - Cantique de Jean Racine

Scraps of moon
bobbing discarded on broken water
 but sky-moon
complete, transcending
all violation
Here she seems to be talking to herself about
the shape of a life:
Only Once

All which, because it was
flame and song and granted us
joy, we thought we'd do, be, revisit,
turns out to have been what it was
that once, only; every invitation
did not begin
a series, a build-up: the marvelous
did not happen in our lives, our stories
are not drab with its absence: but don't
expect to return for more. Whatever more
there will be will be
unique as those were unique. Try
to acknowledge the next
song in its body-halo of flames as utterly
present, as now or never.

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

Talking to Grief, by Denise Levertov

Gabriel Fauré - Piano Trio in D minor Op. 120, II
with the BannerArts Trio

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.

I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.

You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.


vv, thank you
from poemhunter.com

People at Night, by Denise Levertov

Ludwig van Beethoven - Piano Trio in D major Op. 70 No. 1 (Ghost), I
Melbourne Piano Trio (June 2011 at The Independent, Sydney)
Ji Won Kim, violin 
Chris Howlett, cello 
Hoang Pham, piano

A night that cuts between you and you
and you and you and you
and me : jostles us apart, a man elbowing
through a crowd. .........We won't
..................look for each other, either-
wander off, each alone, not looking
in the slow crowd. Among sideshows
..................under movie signs,
..................pictures made of a million lights,
..................giants that move and again move
..................again, above a cloud of thick smells,
..................franks, roasted nutmeats-

Or going up to some apartment, yours
..................or yours, finding
someone sitting in the dark:
who is it really? So you switch the
light on to see: you know the name but
who is it ?
.........But you won't see.

The fluorescent light flickers sullenly, a
pause. But you command. It grabs
each face and holds it up
by the hair for you, mask after mask.
..................You and you and I repeat
..................gestures that make do when speech
..................has failed .........and talk
..................and talk, laughing, saying
..................'I', and 'I',
meaning 'Anybody'.
...........................No one.


from poemhunter.com