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Johan Tahon – Manresa (Holes), 2014-15 , 30 x 43 x 70 cm Glazed ceramic

A Cloak
by Denise Levertov

‘For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked.’ W.B. Yeats

And I walked naked
from the beginning

breathing in
my life,
breathing out
poems,

arrogant in innocence.

But of the song-clouds my breath made
in cold air

a cloak has grown,
white and,

        where here a word
        there another

froze, glittering,
stone-heavy.

A mask, I had not meant
to wear, as if of frost,
covers my face.

          Eyes looking out,

a longing silent at song’s core

from ‘Relearning the Alphabet‘ (1970), New Directions