In 'nature' there's no choice-
flowers
swing their heads in the wind, sun & moon
are as they are. But we seem
almost to have it (not just available death)
It's energy: a spider's thread: not to
'go on living' but to quicken, to activate: extend:
Some have it, they force it --
with work or laughter or even
the act of buying, if that's
all they can lay hands on --
the girls crowding the stores, where light
color, solid dreams are -- what gay
desire! It's their festival,
ring game, wassail, mystery.
It has no grace like that of
the grass, the humble rhythms, the
falling & rising of leaf and star;
it's barely
a constant. Like salt:
take it or leave it
The 'hewers of wood' and so on; every damn
craftsman has it while he's working
but it's not
a question of work: some
shine with it, in repose. Maybe it is
response--the will to respond -- ('reason
can give nothing at all/like
the response to desire') maybe
a gritting of the teeth, to go
just that much further, beyond the end
beyond whatever ends; to begin, to be, to defy.
--Denise Levertov, from The New American Poetry 1945-1960
