Denise Levertov image
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Born in October 24, 1923 / Died in December 20, 1997 / United States / English

Quotes by Denise Levertov

She saw her five young children writhe and die; in that hour she began to watch you, she whose eyes are open forever.
(1) Know the pinetrees. Know the orange dryness of sickness and death in needle and cone. Know them too in green health, those among whom your...
Old Day the gardener seemed Death himself, or Time, scythe in hand by the sundial and freshly-dug grave in my book of parables.
Two by two in the ark of the ache of it.
The ache of marriage: thigh and tongue, beloved, are heavy with it....
there, where you live, live: start over, everyman, with the algae of your dreams.
Mister death who signs papers then eats telegraphs simply: Shoot them then eats
old Death, dusty gardener, are you alive yet, do I live on yet, in your gray considering eye?
Meanwhile the angel, dressed for laughs as a plasterer,...
though it flickers or shrinks to a blue bead on the wick,
Don't eat those nice green dollars your wife gives you for breakfast.
Do you mistake me? I am speaking of living,...
and wife or husband who does not lock the door of the marriage...
A changing skyline. A slice of window filled in by a middle-distancing oblong topped by little moving figures.
Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry.
Sixteen. Her breasts round, round, and dark-nippled who now these two months long is bones and tatters of flesh in earth.
In the gold mouth of a flower the black smell of spring earth....
I remember a dream two nights ago: the voice, 'the artist must create himself or be born again.'
I would be met and meet you so, in a green airy space, not locked in.
putting his hope in certain death, lowering his head again to the grass.
The Minoan Snake Goddess is flanked by a Chardin still-life, somber and tranquil, and by Mohammedan angels...
he bowed and not flinching from her black breath gave her his arm....
... transform into our flesh our...
A letter with it discloses, in its words and between them,...
... asks what it's too late to ask: "Where is my life? Where is my life? What have I done with my life?"