Leavertov Poem

I like to mix in a poem by someone else when I read my poems in public. I have a featured reading coming up in mid March and one of the poems I am considering using is the following because reading one’s work is all about breathing. Plus... it pleases the yogi in me.

The Breathing

An absolute
patience.
Trees stand
up to their knees in
fog. The fog
slowly flows
uphill.
White
cobwebs, the grass
leaning where deer
have looked for apples.
The woods
from brook to where
the top of the hill looks
over the fog, send up
not one bird.
So absolute, it is
no other than
happiness itself, a breathing
too quiet to hear.

Denise Levertov