Denise Levertov

Here you will find thePoemStepping Westwardof poet Denise Levertov

Stepping Westward

What is green in me darkens, muscadine. If woman is inconstant, good, I am faithful to ebb and flow, I fall in season and now is a time of ripening. If her part is to be true, a north star, good, I hold steady in the black sky and vanish by day, yet burn there in blue or above quilts of cloud. There is no savor more sweet, more salt than to be glad to be what, woman, and who, myself, I am, a shadow that grows longer as the sun moves, drawn out on a thread of wonder. If I bear burdens they begin to be remembered as gifts, goods, a basket of bread that hurts my shoulders but closes me in fragrance. I can eat as I go.