Thursday, July 23, 2015

This Poet Knows



The poet Denise Levertov knows something true about the healing power of nature and expresses it perfectly in this poem that was read on NPR's The Writer's Almanac today.

A Reward
by Denise Levertov


Tired and hungry, late in the day, impelled
to leave the house and search for what
might lift me back to what I had fallen away from,
I stood by the shore waiting.
I had walked in the silent woods:
the trees withdrew into their secrets.
Dusk was smoothing breadths of silk
over the lake, watery amethyst fading to gray.
Ducks were clustered in sleeping companies
afloat on their element as I was not
on mine. I turned homeward, unsatisfied.
But after a few steps, I paused, impelled again
to linger, to look North before nightfall-the expanse
of calm, of calming water, last wafts
of rose in the few high clouds.
And was rewarded:
the heron, unseen for weeks, came flying
widewinged toward me, settled
just offshore on his post,
took up his vigil.
                               If you ask
why this cleared a fog from my spirit,
I have no answer.

3 comments:

suep said...

I heard that today too ! thinking of breaths of silk over the lake -

The Furry Gnome said...

Nature speaks to us in various mysterious ways!

catharus said...

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/how-nature-changes-the-brain/?smprod=nytnow&_r=0