where the moon lives

 

From the tawny light

from the rainy nights

from the imagination finding

itself and more than itself

alone and more than alone

at the bottom of the well where the moon lives,

can you pull me

 

into December?

 

The black moon

turns away, its work done. A tenderness,

unspoken autumn.

We are faithful

only to the imagination. What the

imagination

seizes

as beauty must be truth. What holds you

to what you see of me is

that grasp alone.

 

From Denise Levertov, Everything that acts is actual