Once Only, Again

I know I already posted this one, but I read it last night while watching the sunset over the Olympic Mountains, and I think it's worth talking about. 
For some reason, I tend to be rather inept at living in the present. I have been extraordinarily blessed with some spectacular experiences, and I tend to be disappointed when things aren't spectacular all the time. I get bored because nothing too exciting is happening around me, so I disconnect until something interesting happens. I don't know how to handle the "dreary intercourse of daily life". But, as usual, Levertov has managed to eloquently slap me in the face. 


Once Only - Denise Levertov
All which, because it was
flame and song and granted us
joy, we thought we'd do, be, revisit,
turns out to have been what it was
that once, only; every initiation
did not begin
a series, a build-up: the marvelous
             did happen in our lives, our stories
             are not drab with its absence: but don't
expect now to return for more. Whatever more
there will be will be
unique as those were unique. Try
to acknowledge the next
song in its body-halo of flames as utterly
present, as now or never.


Denise Levertov herself said that poetry is "intrinsically revolutionary"; that it is "an ecstasy and a giving of life" (From the essay, "Great Possessions", in The Poet in the World). And that, my friends, is why I read poetry. 
I'm constantly looking back and trying to bring bits of my past into the present, and it just doesn't work. I try to "do, be, revisit" all of those beautiful pieces of my life, while denying the truth that whatever I'm clinging to existed just "once, only". And I can't "expect now to return for more". I realize how disappointing that may sound, but I think it's rather freeing. It doesn't mean that I have to let go completely, just that I can't expect to go back. I can gather up my memories, and move forward to "the next song" which is "utterly present"; which is "now or never". Because this moment exists just "once, only".