A Poem for a Thursday #251

Denise Levertov was British-born and came to the USA when she married. She wrote “deceptively matter-of-fact verse.” She and her husband were political and anti-war activists. Levertov taught at the University of Massachusetts, Tufts University, Brandeis, and Stanford University. She published more than thirty books.

Almost too late to walk in the
woods, but I did,
anyway. And stepping aside for a 
moment
from the shadowy path to enter
darker shadow, a favorite circle
of fir trees,
received a gift from the dusk:
a small owl, not affrighted,
merely
moving deliberately
to a branch a few feet
further from me, looked
full at me—a long regard,
steady, acknowledging,
unbiased.

Creature to Creature
Denise Levertov