A Blessing

Sometimes I wonder why I bother reading other poets... 

Hovering light embraces

the yellowing poplars, four spires

evenly spaced, a dozen clustered

apart, all of them backed by foresty dark,

a curtain of conifers.

Waking and sleeping, there was grace, reassurance,

during the hours of darkness:

a change in perception, such as we read of

in 19^th-century stories, when someone in fever

visibly passed from danger into a calm lagoon

of slumber, promising health.

The light on the trees a nimbus now

of downy yellow, embrace without pressure of weight,

compassionate light.

- Denise Levertov, “A Blessing”