Poetic Gods, in honor of

.
 
“You have come to the shore.  
There are no instructions.” *  
 
Air relaxes into moisture;
immense space submerging  
into tiny crystals of rising ice  
coating its humid skin;  
Deforestation strips
its oxygen source;  
poachers ravage  
its basin of origin;
extinction fossilizes  
its creation to stone,  
darkening the Belief  
of a Future from us.  
 
We look to beauty for Breath;
We look to Poetry for Life.
Trust diligently sages
Her Sweat Lodge  
on a foundation of rock,
the ancestry and promise  
of tomorrow’s Poem.  
The one that will fold
Space between distance
Uniting separates as One.  
 
And, by the grace  
of those Poetic Gods  
the Truth they were -
more so now in Death
we gratefully survive
“…creatures who crawl
through the dark toward us
their ancestors, their loving
assassins breathing ‘Why?’  
like a cold wind.” **
~  
 
 
* Denise Levertov
** Penelope Mortimer
 
Multiple exposure collage of Penelope Mortimer and Denise Levertov created by myself from individual photographs credited as such:
 
Mortimer: nl.schowb-books.edu
Levertov: poetry society/biography.com