Brilliant day (Easter Sunday, 2023)

April 9, 2023 at Winterthur which is the legacy of Henry Francis du Pont, 1880-1969, American

 

Celebration

Denise Levertov, American born England, 1923-1997

from the posthumously published This Great Unknowing – Last Poems

 

 

 

Brilliant, this day – a young virtuoso of a day.

Morning shadow cut by sharpest scissors,

deft hands. And every prodigy of green –

whether it’s ferns or lichens or needles or impatient points of buds on spindly bushes –

greener than ever before. And the way the conifers

hold new cones to the light for the blessing,
a festive right,

                                     and sing the oceanic 

chant the wind


transcribes for them!

 

A day that shines in the cold

 

like a first-prize brass band swinging along
the street

of a coal-dusty village, wholly at odds

Parade on Hammond Street, 1935, oil on canvas.  Allan Rohan Crite, 1910-2007, American.  The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC

 

with the claims of reasonable gloom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One thought on “Brilliant day (Easter Sunday, 2023)

  1. Oh! Heaven on the ground, in the soil and under the marching feet. Quite a display of spring spirit and abundance. Thank you for capturing moments of that and sending it off to quieter Easter celebrants.

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