Phillis Levin | Official Website

A Needle In The Sky

There is a needle in the sky
     Being threaded now, but the thread is blue:
That is why you cannot see it
     Threading its way. When all is said and done
It will keep sewing – as long
     As a tiny knot remains, as long as something
Whets the tip whenever the knot
     Happens to untie, as long as the sun
Arouses the wind that catches
     The thread again, twisting an end so that
It may begin. There is a needle
     Pulling a thread through your veins,
A needle pulling the sap
     From the root to the bole, a thread
Pulling a bird to a tree –
     Tugging your heart as soon as you believe
There is nothing left.
     There is a glistening filament, a cold
Instrument making its way
     From once upon a time to now,
To tomorrow. Maybe the sun
     Is a giant spool, maybe the needle
Cannot rest until it runs
     Out of light, maybe a star is a random
Stitch unraveling . . .
     Until a needle runs out of thread,
It is impossible to look
     Into its eye.

Keep Reading

…and still, as he looked, he lived; and still,
as he lived, he wondered.
– Kenneth Grahame,
The Wind in the Willows

“Keep reading,” you said, as we lay
In the boat of your bed, you
Almost asleep, I floating on words,

On a stream of lines flowing
To the river’s edge, when I stopped,
For I wanted to be by your side,

There with you, your skin warm
Against mine. “Keep reading,” you said:
Though I thought you were far away,

On the other side, on the brink of sleep,
You were listening, still, you were near,
Knowing how far from the end I was

As the sound of your voice (as a sound
Alive inside your voice) carried me on
To the weir, to a piper piping an alien

Song at the gates of dawn, on a shore
Changed by more than the touch
Of the sun. Then the words wavered,

The letters blurred, swelling
To dapples of darkness and light –
I looked away to see you there,

Your glistening lashes, a tear
That fell, running down your cheek
As you heard me start to weep

At a passage you knew so well,
The one you were longing to hear
As you floated far into night,

Waiting in the boat of your bed
To hear me reach what was so close by,
Where you led me to, having read my heart.

“Keep reading,” you said, without saying why.

Acorn

Under its hat
many secrets
asleep
keeping time

Soon it will tell
almost everything

if you wait
long enough
in the grass in the snow

if you look if you listen

and if you do nothing
it will be what it will be
nevertheless

With a hat like that
you could walk the windiest hall
of an endless wood

as the worst and the best rain down
out of nowhere

With a hat like that
you could hide the highest hope
the biggest fear

and appear once a year to disappear

O where is the loom
on which it is woven

How can a tomb
too small for a petal
carry the body of autumn in its hull

Cradle of greenest memory

kernel dreaming
the weight of a starling

cupola cupping the fire of dawn

den of creation

shedding itself
again
for a song

O give me a room to keep a secret
until the leaf is ready
to be lit

and when it is time to go out
into the cold
give me a hat
like that

Tender Offer

for Jean Valentine

That little chick on the sidewalk
on the pink
stone steps
whose gravel glistened

That little boy who brought it by
brought it to me
in the cup
of his hands

where he held it
untrembling

A living thing
butter-yellow ashes

a living thing

Tiny body
(some body’s) being
felt

softer than soft as

the collection of all erasures

Butter-yellow ash heap / featherbed
breathing inside his hands

dandelion pillow with two puny legs
twig feet

One little body giving light
a cup of light
of tenderness waking

So much work already done

Nocturne

Two waterfalls we were
The night we lived all night

Together like two drops
Of rain slipping

From god’s gold back
After a day in the garden

Before the world began:
We were a single stream

And then arose
Pouring through each other

No more than silk and fur
Entering and entered

Until a cooling drop
Of light was all we were.

Portrait

It was getting dark, and all the while
Something in you was coming forward,
The way a mountain appears to loom
At the end of day. We were talking

About myriad things as dusk dissolved
The table between us, where a bottle
Of wine floated in summer’s aura.
Then the light changed, your profile

Sharpened, and suddenly I saw
A side of you that could kill.
Calmly I sat, watching something
That all along had been hiding

In the background, under your shyness,
Under your stillness. Your shoulders,
Broad enough to hold years of silence,
Bore no weapon, but surely your hands

Had carried one, reluctantly, securely.
And your arms folded before me
Posed an enormous question
Forbidding any answer.

Part

Of something, separate, not
Whole; a role, something to play
While one is separate or parting;

Also a piece, a section, as in
Part of me is here, part of me
Is missing; an essential portion,

Something falling to someone
In division; a particular voice
Or instrument (also the score

For it), or line of music;
The line where the hair
Is parted. A verb: to break

Or suffer the breaking of,
Become detached,
Broken; to go from, leave,

Take from, sever, as in
Lord, part me from him,
I cannot bear to ever