Aren't There Annunciations of One Sort or Another in Most Lives?

(Tanner, The Annunciation)

Annunciation

by Denise Levertov

‘Hail, space for the uncontained God’ 

From the Agathistos Hymn, Greece, VIc 

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished, 

almost always a lectern, a book; always the tall lily. 

Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings, 

the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering, 

whom she acknowledges, a guest. 

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions 

courage. 

The engendering Spirit did not enter her without consent. 

God waited. 

She was free 

to accept or to refuse, choice 

integral to humanness. 

______________________________________________________

Aren’t there annunciations 

of one sort or another 

in most lives? 

Some unwillingly undertake great destinies, 

enact them in sullen pride, 

uncomprehending. 

More often those moments 

when roads of light and storm 

open from darkness in a man or woman, 

are turned away from 

in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair 

and with relief. 

Ordinary lives continue. 

God does not smite them. 

But the gates close, the pathway vanishes. 

______________________________________________________

She had been a child who played, ate, slept 

like any other child–but unlike others, 

wept only for pity, laughed 

in joy not triumph. 

Compassion and intelligence 

fused in her, indivisible. 

Called to a destiny more momentous 

than any in all of Time, 

she did not quail, 
only asked a simple, ‘How can this be?’ 

and gravely, courteously, 

took to heart the angel’s reply, 

the astounding ministry she was offered: 

to bear in her womb 

Infinite weight and lightness; to carry 

in hidden, finite inwardness, 

nine months of Eternity; to contain 

in slender vase of being, 

the sum of power– 

in narrow flesh, 

the sum of light. 

Then bring to birth, 

push out into air, a Man-child 

needing, like any other, 

milk and love– 

but who was God. 

This was the moment no one speaks of, 

when she could still refuse. 

A breath unbreathed, 

                              Spirit, 

                                      suspended, 

                                                    waiting. 

______________________________________________________

She did not cry, ‘I cannot. I am not worthy,’ 

Nor, ‘I have not the strength.’ 

She did not submit with gritted teeth, 

raging, 

coerced. 

Bravest of all humans, 

consent illumined her. 

The room filled with its light, 

the lily glowed in it, 

          and the iridescent wings. 

Consent, 

          courage unparalleled, 

opened her utterly. 

Learn more about Deinse Levertov: www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/denise-levertov