SHORT POEMS AND SPIN-OFFS: EMILY AND THE EXPERIENCE OF SURPRISE
by Denise Levertov
Page 10
Beatrice Hawley was a wonderful person and wonderful poet who died last year and I'm editing her posthumous manuscripts. And I think that she is someone who really was influenced by and has some strong affinities with Emily Dickinson. I wrote a poem after her death called "Missing Beatrice: For Beatrice Hawley 1944-1985."
Goodness was
a fever in you. Anyone
might glow in the heat of it,
of home comforted-
for them a shawl, for you
fire at the bone.
You knew
more than was good for you.
Your innocence
was peat-bog water, subtle and dark,
that cold it was,
that pure.
Kindness-didn't we act as though
we could cut an endless supply from you
like turf from a bog?
Smoke of that empty hearth
fragrant still.
Your words
cupped in our hands to drink.
But you-
you're gone and we never
really saw you.
