Denise Levertov / A Silence

Lovers
Miguel Angel de Quevedo, Mexico DF, 2013
Photo by Triunfo Arciniegas

A Silence

by Denise Levertov

BIOGRAPHY

Among its petals the rose
still holds
    a few tears of the morning rain that
broke it from its stem
     In each
shines a speck of
     red light, darker even
than the rose. Phoenix-tailed
slateblue martins pursue
          one   another, spaced out
in hopeless hope, circling
           the porous clay vase, dark from
the water in it. Silence
surrounds the facts. A language
still unspoken.