A Gift

I read this poem in our debriefing session this evening (Wednesday 6/1). We wanted to share it with our readers and one another.

The poet is Denise Levertov (1923-1997), a great great human being and a brilliant poet.
Fr. Kevin Burke, S.J.

A Gift

 

 

Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.