Making Peace

Only Hope remained there within the rim of the great jar
(after Pandora had let loose disaster and affliction).

These days—these years -
when powers and principalities of death
weigh down the world, deeper, deeper
than we ever thought it could fall and still keep slowly spinning,

Hope, caught under the jar’s rim, crawls like a golden fly
round and around, a sentinel: 
it can’t get out, it can’t fly free
among our heavy hearts—
but does not die, keeps up its pace,
ausing only as if to meditate

Denise Levertov

Image Row, Summer of 1986
Ed: Peggy Rosenthal

return to 9/06 CPF Newsletter