Ascension

Stretching Himself as if again,

  through downpress of dust

   upward, soil giving way

to thread of white, that reaches

  for daylight, to open as green

   leaf that it is. . .

Can Ascension

  not have been

   arduous, almost,

as the return

  from Sheol, and

   back through the tomb

into breath?

  Matter reanimate

   now must relinquish

itself, its

  human cells,

   molecules, five

senses, linear

  visions endured

   as Man—

the sole

  all-encompassing gaze

   resumed now,

Eye of Eternity.

  Relinquished, earth’s

   broken Eden.

Expulsion,

  liberation,

   last

self-enjoined task

  of Incarnation.

   He again

Fathering Himself.

  Seed-case

   splitting,

He again

  Mothering His birth:

   torture and bliss.

—Denise Levertov, 1990s

Blessings,