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Deborah J. Brasket

~ Living on the Edge of the Wild

Deborah J. Brasket

Tag Archives: Denise Levertov

Primary Wonder, Age Three

13 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by deborahbrasket in Backyard, Family, Nature, Poetry, Writing

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Deborah J. Brasket, Denise Levertov, granddaughter, grandparenting, life, National Poetry Month, poetry, Primary Wonder, wonder

DSCN0032 (2)

Primary Wonder, Age Three

Walking with our granddaughter
Whispering and waving
Our wings
Sniffing for bats.

What do you smell grandma?
Trees
What do you smell grandpa?
Clouds

by Deborah J. Brasket

Inspired from a backyard outing with our granddaughter after re-reading this poem by Denise Levertov.

Primary Wonder

Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; cap and bells.

And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng’s clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.

by Denise Levertov

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Primary Wonder & A Bell Awakened – Two By Levertov

29 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by deborahbrasket in Nature, Poetry, Spirituality

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

becoming awakened, Denise Levertov, life, mystery, poetry, wonder

DSCN0032 (2)The whole purpose of life, of this extraordinary experience in being, is to be awake to the wonder and mystery around us in all their myriad forms. These two poems speak eloquently to that need.

Primary Wonder

Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; cap and bells.

And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng’s clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.

Variation On A Theme By Rilke

A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me–a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day’s blow
rang out, metallic–or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

Both by Denise Levertov

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After sailing around the world in a small boat for six years, I came to appreciate how tiny and insignificant we humans appear in our natural and untamed surroundings, living always on the edge of the wild, into which we are embedded even while being that thing which sets us apart. Now living again on the edge of the wild in a home that borders a nature preserve, I am re-exploring what it means to be human in a more than human world.

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