your daydreams aren't forever better get your shit together

Three Poems by Denise Levertov

The Broken Sand

Dreamed the thong of my sandal broke.
Nothing to hold it to my foot.
How shall I walk?

Barefoot?

The sharp stones, the dirt. I would
hobble.
And --
Where was I going?
Where was I going I can't
go to now, unless hurting?
Where an I standing, if I'm
to stand still now?

Waiting

I am waiting.
On benches, at the corners
of earth's waitingrooms,
by trees whose sap rises, rises
to escape in gray leaves and lose
itself in teh last air.
Waiting
for who comes at last
late, lost, the forever
longed-for, walking
not my road but crossing
the corner where I wait.

A Dark Summer Day

I want some funky jazz band
to wake me,
tell me life's been dreaming me.
I want something like love, but made
out of string or pebbles,
oboe of torn air
to tear me to my senses.
Emily's black birds
don't bate their banjos nor the throbbing
of their quick hearts.
The leaves part to reveal
more leaves, and darkness,
darkness and the intense
poised sequence of leaves.
I want to take that last of all leaves
between my lips and taste
its weight in stone.