A Poem for a Thursday #277

Denise Levertov was born in England in 1923. From the beginning, she had great confidence in her poetry even sending T. S. Eliot some of her poems. She was only twelve years old at the time. Eliot responded with a two-page typewritten letter offering advice and encouragement. Levertov moved to the United States after her marriage. Her verse is “frequently a tour through the familiar and the mundane until their unfamiliarity and otherworldliness strike us.”

I have a small grain of hope—
one small crystal that gleams
clear colors out of transparency.

I need more.

I break off a fragment
to send you.

Please take 
this grain of a grain of hope
so that mine won't shrink.

Please share your fragment
so that yours will grow.

Only so, by division,
will hope increase,

like a clump of irises, which will cease to flower
unless you distribute
the clustered roots, unlikely source—
clumsy and earth-covered—
of grace.

"For the New Year, 1981"
Denise Levertov