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September 1961 by Denise Levertov
This is the year the old ones, the old great ones leave us alone on the road.
The road leads to the sea. We have the words in our pockets, obscure directions. The old ones
have taken away the light of their presence, we see it moving away over a hill off to one side.
They are not dying, they are withdrawn into a painful privacy
learning to live without words. E. P. "It looks like dying"-Williams: "I can't describe to you what has been
happening to me"- H. D. "unable to speak." The darkness
twists itself in the wind, the stars are small, the horizon ringed with confused urban light-haze.
They have told us the road leads to the sea, and given
the language into our hands. We hear our footsteps each time a truck
has dazzled past us and gone leaving us new silence. Ine can't reach
the sea on this endless road to the sea unless one turns aside at the end, it seems,
follows the owl that silently glides above it aslant, back and forth,
and away into deep woods.
But for usthe road unfurls itself, we count the words in our pockets, we wonder
how it will be without them, we don't stop walking, we know there is far to go, sometimes
we think the night wind carries a smell of the sea...
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