Advent 1966

By Denise Levertov 1923–1997 Denise Levertov

Because in Vietnam the vision of a Burning Babe

is multiplied, multiplied,

the flesh on fire

not Christ’s, as Southwell saw it, prefiguring

the Passion upon the Eve of Christmas,

but wholly human and repeated, repeated,

infant after infant, their names forgotten,

their sex unknown in the ashes,

set alight, flaming but not vanishing,

not vanishing as his vision but lingering,

cinders upon the earth or living on

moaning and stinking in hospitals three abed;

because of this my strong sight,

my clear caressive sight, my poet’s sight I was given

that it might stir me to song,

is blurred.

There is a cataract filming over

my inner eyes. Or else a monstrous insect

has entered my head, and looks out

from my sockets with multiple vision,

seeing not the unique Holy Infant

burning sublimely, an imagination of redemption,

furnace in which souls are wrought into new life,

but, as off a beltline, more, more senseless figures aflame.

And this insect (who is not there—

it is my own eyes do my seeing, the insect

is not there, what I see is there)

will not permit me to look elsewhere,

or if I look, to see except dulled and unfocused

the delicate, firm, whole flesh of the still unburned.

Source: To Stay Alive (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1971)

Biography

During the course of a prolific career, Denise Levertov created a highly regarded body of poetry that reflects her beliefs as an artist and a humanist. Her work embraces a wide variety of genres and themes, including nature lyrics, love poems, protest poetry, and poetry inspired by her faith in God. "Dignity, reverence, and strength are words that come to mind as one gropes to characterize . . . one of America's most respected . . .

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