to ponder sadness deep

                            LAMENTATIONS                

Grief, have I denied thee?
Grief, I have denied thee.

That robe or tunic, black gauze
over black and silver my sister wore
to dance Sorrow, hung so long
in my closet. I never tried it on.
                               And my dance
was Summer—they rouged my cheeks
and twisted roses with wire stems into my hair.
I was complaint, Juno de sept ans,
betraying my autumn birthright pour faire plaisir.
Always denial. Grief in the morning, washed away
in coffee, crumbled to a dozen errands between
busy fingers.
                      Or across cloistral shadow, insistent
intrusion of pink sun stripes from open
archways, falling recurrent.

Corrosion denied, the figures the acid designs
filled in. Grief dismissed,
and Eros along with grief.
Phantasmagoria swept across the sky
by shaky winds endlessly,
the spaces of blue timidly steady—
blue curtains at trailer windows framing
the cinder walks.
There are hidden corners of sky
choked with the swept shreds, with pain and ashes.
                                                            Grief,
have I denied thee? Denied thee. 
The emblems torn from the walls,
and the black plumes.

                       Denise  Levertov

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