SHORT POEMS AND SPIN-OFFS: EMILY AND THE EXPERIENCE OF SURPRISE
by Denise Levertov
Page 15
And the last two . . . I'm going to make it three. It's cheating, but they are short. This is one is called "Mappemonde", that old word for the map of the world.
Nonchalant clouds below me
dangle shadows
into the curved river at Saskatoon.
Atlas of frontiers long-redrawn,
gazetteer of obsolete cities-
a jet-vapor garland
stretches and stretches to link
your incantations,
and breaks.
Still audible, stiffly revolving,
the globe of the world
creaks out enticements.
Decades pile up like thunderheads.
O Geography!
On your thick syrops
I float and float,
I glide through your brew
of bitter herbs.
Mumbulla Mountain,
low and round,
hums in green and hums
in tune, down in the Dreamtime.
World, you grow vaster. Our
time cannot encompass you.
SEEING FOR A MOMENTI thought I was growing wings-
it was a cocoon.
I thought, now is the time to step
into the fire-
it was deep water.
Eschatology is a word I learned
as a child: the study of Last Things;
facing my mirror-no longer young.
the news-always of death,
the dogs-rising from sleep and clamoring
and howling, howling,
nevertheless
I see for a moment
that's not it: it is
the First Things.
Word after word
floats through the glass.
Toward me.
