Released through bars of sorrow
as if not a gate had opened but I
grown intangible had passed through, shadowy,
from dark of yearning into
a soft day, western March;
a thrust of birdsong
parts the gold flowers thickbranching
that roof the path over.
Arms enfold me,
tenderly. I am trusted, I trust
the real that transforms me.
And relinquish
in grief
the seeing that burns through, comes through
to fire's core: transformation, continuance,
as acts of magic I would perform, are no longer
articles of faith.
-Levertov ("Relearning the Alphabet")