Quote #11

He told of journeys, of where sun and moon go while we stand in dark, of an earth-journey he dreamed he would take some day deeper than roots ... He told of the dreams of man, wars, passions, griefs, and I, a tree, understood words - ah, it seemed my thick bark would split like a sapling's that grew too fast in the spring when a late frost wounds it.

More from Denise Levertov

  1. Then as he sang it was no longer sounds only that made the music: he spoke, and as no tree listens I listened, and language came into my ro…
  2. Fire he sang, that trees fear, and I, a tree, rejoiced in its flames. New buds broke forth from me though it was full summer. As though his…
  3. I was the first to see him, for I grew out on the pasture slope, beyond the forest. He was a man, it seemed. . .
  4. And I in terror but not in doubt of what I must do in anguish, in haste, wrenched from the earth root after root, the soil heaving and crac…
  5. I love them for finding what I can't find, and for loving me for the line I wrote, and for forgetting it so that a thousand times, till dea…
  6. The music reached us. Clumsily, stumbling over our own roots, rustling our leaves in answer, we moved, we followed.
  7. Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry. I who don't know the secret wrote the line.
  8. By dawn he was gone. We have stood here since, in our new life. We have waited. He does not return.

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