Page 736 of my AP Lit book

"Of Being"


I know this happiness
Is provisional:

the looming presences-
great suffering, great fear-

withdraw only
into peripheral vision:

but ineluctable this shimmering
of wind in the blue leaves:

this flood of stillness
widening the lake of sky:

this need to dance,
this need to kneel:

this mystery.



~Denise Levertov