where you and i are

Names can be deceiving.
A letter, when given to a room
Ceases the room to be.

What is a room?
Room that is in a house, that is in
A life, that is a space

To occupy as love would
Inhabit a time.
And loving, a state of habitation.

Where you and I are, shall we
Receive a name for it or forgoing
Let the where itself be.

I thought of a lover by another name 
In another way, is still a lover.
As love is afraid and brave

Certain of uncertain.

should i tell you there are two lemons on the table

Should I tell you there are two lemons on the table, the kind
grown in these regions. Taut and green and sour just enough
sweet to be forgiven. Not that they ask for any, being only
what they are. Unlike other things that need telling

For instance, the green ramekin with an apostle spoon 
beside a custom-made glass half filled with water the way
things should be. The mobile phone beside it, black
is quiet and the pen beside it, black, is still.

Other things need reminding. The clock to keep on running.
The ring around a finger, hers, to mean. The roads are long
and web-like and many. And this, a brief brush of wind.
She is passing and is leaving.

shall we take a quiet walk together?

I Learned That Her Name Was Proverb

I Learned That Her Name Was Proverb




And the secret names
of all we meet who led us deeper
into our labyrinth
of valleys and mountains, twisting valleys
and steeper mountains-
their hidden names are always,
like Proverb, promises:
Rune, Omen, Fable, Parable,
those we meet for only
one crucial moment, gaze to gaze,
or for years Know and don’t recognize

but of whom later a word
sings back to us
as if from high among leaves,
still near beyond sight

drawing us from tree to tree
towards the time and the unknown place
where we shall know
what it is to arrive.






by Denise Levertov