Denise Levertov: Poetry of the Passion

Denise Levertov was one of America’s finest 20th Century poets. A political activist, outspoken and passionately opposed to the Vietnam war, her poems are life affirming and persistent in hopefulness. In 1984 she converted to Christianity – so the poem below is an interesting indicator of her mind and spirit in pilgrimage, travelling hopefully.

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Many of her later poems use explicitly Christian metaphors and images – but this one captures for me the hopefulness of hope, the trustfulness of faith, and the absolute fragility of a human life exposed to all the possibilities of brokenness. On Holy Saturday, that dark mystery when nothing was happening, the time of fearful waiting before that First Resurrection morning, this brief poem celebrates the nature of hope as propagated by telling and sharing – the body of the crucified Jesus, ‘unlikely source, clumsy and earth covered of grace’.

“For the New Year,1981”

Denise Levertov (1923-1997).

I have a small grain of hope

one small crystal that gleams

clear colors out of transparency.

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I need more.

I break off a fragment

to send you.

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Please take

this grain of a grain of hope

so that mine won’t shrink.

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Please share your fragment

so that yours will grow.

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Only so, by division,

will hope increase,

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like a clump of irises, which will cease to flower

unless you distribute

the clustered roots, unlikely source

clumsy and earth-covered

of grace.