SHORT POEMS AND SPIN-OFFS: EMILY AND THE EXPERIENCE OF SURPRISE
by Denise Levertov
Page 7
The rest of the year I live in the Boston area where I have a very small and shady backyard, and a sort of back porch on which I attempt every year to grow morning glories in boxes, training them up a wire mesh thing around the back porch. And I don't get a great display of morning glories because I don't really get enough sunshine there, because there are a lot of trees roundabout and other buildings, but I do get some, and, in some ways, just having one, or sometimes a few more, but often just one, morning glory per day is very special, actually. I can't say that I wouldn't like to have a whole fence full of them but there is something very special about coming downstairs each morning to see a brand new morning glory, which will be faded by noon. So one has to really look at it while it's there. But this particular one is perhaps a slightly sad poem. It's called "Captive Flower."
This morning's morning-glory
trying to thrust
through the wire mesh towards the sun
is trapped
half-open.
I ease it back
to see better its unfurling,
but only slowly it resigns
the dream. Its petals
are scarred.
I had not thought myself
a jailer.
