February Evening in New York

As the stores close, a winter light     opens air to iris blue,     glint of frost through the smoke     grains of mica, salt of the sidewalk. As the buildings close, released autonomous        feet pattern the streets     in hurry and stroll; balloon heads     drift and dive above them; the bodies        aren't really there. As the lights brighten, as the sky darkens,     a woman with crooked heels says to another woman        while they step along at a fair pace,     "You know, I'm telling you, what I love best        is life. I love life! Even if I ever get     to be old and wheezy—or limp! You know?        Limping along?—I'd still ... " Out of hearing.    To the multiple disordered tones     of gears changing, a dance     to the compass points, out, four-way river.        Prospect of sky     wedged into avenues, left at the ends of streets,        west sky, east sky: more life tonight! A range        of open time at winter's outskirts.                            - - -  DENISE LEVERTOV

A Reward by Denise Levvertov

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.

A Clearing

What lies at the end of enticing
country driveways, curving
off among trees? Often only
a car graveyard, a house-trailer,
a trashy bungalow. But this one,
for once, brings you
through the shade of its green tunnel
to a paradise of cedars,
of lawns mown but not too closely,
of iris, moss, fern, rivers of stone rounded
by sea or stream,
of a wooden unassertive large-windowed house.
The big trees enclose
an expanse of sky, trees and sky
together protect the clearing.
One is sheltered here
from the assaultive world
as if escaped from it, and yet
once arrived, is given (oneself
and others being a part of that world)
a generous welcome.
It's paradise
as a paradigm for how
to live on earth,
how to be private and open
quiet and richly eloquent.
Everything man-made here
was truly made by the hands
of those who live here, of those
who live with what they have made.
It took time, and is growing still
because it's alive.
It is paradise, and paradise
is a kind of poem; it has
a poem's characteristics:
inspiration; starting with the given;
unexpected harmonies; revelations.
It's rare among
the worlds one finds
at the end of enticing driveways.

by Denise Levertov