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.