Who is at my window, who, who?
It's the blind cuckoo, mulling
the old song over.
The old song is about fear, about
tomorrow and next year.
Timor mortis conturbat me, he sings....

(Denise Levertov (b. 1923), Anglo-U.S. poet. "Who Is at My Window.")

From the shrivelling gray
silk of its cocoon
a creature slowly
is pushing out
to stand clear....

(Denise Levertov (b. 1923), Anglo-U.S. poet. "The Disclosure.")

He throws off
artifacts as he
contracts and expands the
muscle of his being,
ringed in himself,
tilling.

(Denise Levertov (b. 1923), Anglo-U.S. poet. "The Earth Worm.")

Joy is
so special a thing, vivid?'
her love for the earth
returns, her heart lightens,
she savors the crust.

(Denise Levertov (b. 1923), Anglo-U.S. poet. "Joy.")

To stand on common ground
here and there gritty with pebbles
yet elsewhere 'fine and mellow?
uncommon fine for ploughing'
there to labor
planting the vegetable words

(Denise Levertov (b. 1923), Anglo-U.S. poet. "A Common Ground.")

Sleeping, sleeping,
it is the
thunder of the serpent
drumroll of
the mounting smell of
gas.

(Denise Levertov (b. 1923), Anglo-U.S. poet. "Above the Cave.")

It was reported their singing resembled
the flight of moths in moonlight.
Who can say? It is silent now.

(Denise Levertov (b. 1923), Anglo-U.S. poet. "What Were They Like?")

The last cobwebs
of fog in the
black firtrees are flakes
of white ash in the world's hearth.

(Denise Levertov (b. 1923), Anglo-U.S. poet. "The Depths.")

she
is kind and very clean without
ostentation
but she has
no imagination.

(Denise Levertov (b. 1923), Anglo-U.S. poet. "In Mind.")

I want to move deeper into today;
he keeps me from that work.

(Denise Levertov (b. 1923), Anglo-U.S. poet. "Who Is at My Window.")