The killings continue, each second

pain and misfortune extend themselves

in the genetic chain, injustice is done knowingly, and the air

bears the dust of decayed hopes,

yet breathing those fumes, walking the thronged

pavements among crippled lives, jackhammers

raging, a parking lot painfully agleam

in the May sun I have seen

not behind but within, within the

dull grief, blown grit, hideous

concrete facades, another grief, a gleam

as of dew, an aboad of mercy,

have heard not behind but within noise

a humming that drifted into a quiet smile.

Nothing was changed, all was revealed otherwise;

not that horror was not, not that the killings did not continue,

not that I thought there was to be no more despair,

but that as if transparent all disclosed

an otherness that was blessed, that was bliss.

 

Denise Levertov (1923-1997)