Beginners

 Dedicated to the memory of Karen Silkwood and Elliot Gralla

But we have only begun 

To love the earth. 

We have only begun

To imagine the fullness of life.

How could we tire of hope?

-- so much is in bud.

How can desire fail?

-- we have only begun

to imagine justice and mercy,

only begun to envision

how it might be 

to live as siblings with beast and flower, 

not as oppressors.

Surely our river

cannot already be hastening

into the sea of nonbeing?

Surely it cannot 

drag, in the silt,

all that is innocent?

Not yet, not yet--

there is too much broken

that must be mended,

too much hurt we have done to each other

that cannot yet be forgiven.

We have only begun to know

the power that is in us if we would join

our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

So much is unfolding

that must complete its gesture,

so much is in bud.

Denise Levertov, Candles in Babylon (New Directions Publishing Corp, 1982)