In the foreword to his final collection, Breathing Room, Peter Davison (1928-2004) wrote about his desire to write poems that could “evoke a mood, a scene, an enimga, the unfolding of a metaphor, the entrapment of an idea, in a space or shape that will contain it without killing it.” “The Level Path,” the penultimate poem in the book, presents us with a vivid instance of such unfolding and entrapment—in this case, the inability to turn back from beauty and where it may lead us.
The Level Path
Descend here along a shower of
shallow steps past the potting shed with
its half-rotted ironbound door
to reach the level path. It winds
northward, high hat, girdling
the waist of a limestone cliff
beyond earshot of the clamorous village below. The
squeezed access bears us vaguely along
shifting digressions of the compass, past
eye-level seductions of violet, periwinkle, primrose, and petals
like lisping yellow butterflies. Naked limbs
of beech, haggard liftings of pine,
a hairy upthrust of cedar beside a
curving stone bench, all hint at eruptions
into Eros. Yet another seat displays
a cushion of undisturbed luxuriant moss around its clefts and
edges. Thick harsh leaves
of holly, ivy, even of palmetto
thrust up, pathside, between tender new petals,
while other friendly shrubs reach down
from overhead to fondle our faces.
There is no escape from the dreadful beauty of
this narrow path. It leads nowhere
except to itself and
the black water below.
Learn more about Breathing Room by Peter Davison
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