Denise Levertov’s poem “Annunciation” is a moving meditation on Mary’s submission to the Spirit’s announcement of her strange and mysterious destiny.
As Levertov suggests, we all have “annunciations/ of one sort or another” in our lives. We have moments when the Divine seems to reach out and point the way ahead for our journey. We must decide whether we will follow the flow of that deep inner prompting or continue to live by some lesser rhythm.
In her poem, Levertov asserts the central place of consent in the spiritual life. Every day we face circumstances that challenge us to decide whether we will struggle to assert our determined will over the circumstances of our lives or whether we will choose to consent to the Divine Reality at the heart of all circumstances we confront.
Advent challenges us to consider the possibility that there is a dimension of our being that is deeper than all our discontent, unhappiness, and turmoil.
Mary’s response to the angel’s announcement of the miracle to be born in her body invites us to ask ourselves whether we desire to live from that place within ourselves that is deeper and more real than all the changeable uncertain circumstances that so often create turmoil and uncertainty on the surface of our lives. Will we seek to live from the depths of our being that transcend the constant flux of circumstance?
If we follow Mary’s practice of consent, we will find as she did, that we carry in our inner being “Infinite weight and lightness..” Then, from our “hidden, finite inwardness,” will be born the one who is God.
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(Levertov’s poem is printed below. There is a line in the poem I find quite incomprehensible. Read the whole poem and see if any line strikes you as puzzling. I will tell you at the end the line that troubles me. I welcome brilliant insights about its meaning, even dull inclinations would be welcome.)
Annunciation
(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,
perceiving instantly
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 sun 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.
*****************************
Who is Levertov describing, or what situation is she imagining, when she writes:
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
In A Spacious Place 
13 comments
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December 12, 2012 at 5:49 am
TranX
“But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.”
Cannot agree with that… to agree to that is to leave myself hopeless and in despair.
I believe that when He changes us so that “I awake, with thy likeness,” He will give us a new heart, the same heart as Mary’s which made it possible for her to say “yes.”
So, Grace means that the gates are always left open, the pathway ever present, till He finishes the good work that He started in me, as He promised to.
December 12, 2012 at 9:07 am
lindsay
I think this poem is about courage and devotion … that Levertov is saying that most of us are called at some time another by an un-ordinary and compelling force to lead un-ordinary lives … that we see the gateway/path to the direction we called to go and make the choice instead to live a more ordinary life. There is no penalty for choosing to be more ordinary … instead it is a relief not to have to choose to follow a path which takes courage and might set us apart … As we make this choice the gateway and path simply disappear … and we carry on with our lives.
“Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.”
Perhaps Levertov is suggesting that some people do choose to follow this alternate un-ordinary path with gritty determination, even though it doesn’t make much sense, and what motivates them is perhaps pride or the satisfaction of knowing they made this choice, rather than joy. There is courage and devotion, yes, but also a heaviness about it enacting this role .. about dong the “right” thing …
Perhaps Levertov is suggesting that Mary was also given the choice to follow an un-ordinary path …. and though we might often think she made this choice out of meek obedience, we perhaps misunderstand her courage … to choose to give life to something/someone which was un-ordinary … that there was no triumph or particular self-satisfaction or guile in her choice … her acceptance of this rather astounding and unusual offer, but compassion, devotion and courage … Perhaps Levertov is suggesting there was no separation between the choice she made and the role she played … she wasn’t acting out a role … ?
December 12, 2012 at 10:11 am
Tress
Well it is certainly not a brilliant observation!! but for what it is worth,how it struck me was that she referred to people who are called to some service to humanity,which does not follow the ordinary path to material comfort or family stability and enjoyment, so involves some sacrifice which become burdensome to them because of the ordinary life that they understand that they are missing.
.Or it could be those who have special gifts ,which require a degree of concentration and devotion, which disrupts normal ordinary life, but for whom the sacrifices asked to follow such a path is burdensome,and so clouds their vision of that destiny .
Where as Mary accepted this destiny with grace and fortitude.
” As usual ! probably Lindsay said it better!”
December 12, 2012 at 10:22 am
Tress
The more i think about it , the more I can see that. in the story of Mary’s acceptance of her lot, is the example not just to those with extra ordinary
destinies , but to those on every day life that shoulder the burdens entailed in the care of each other ,as providers and caring in sickness health and loss, ,but above all with acceptance and love.
December 13, 2012 at 9:26 am
lindsay
Hi Tress, I like your words in your comments here … they remind me again of the devotion and fortitude it takes to “take care of each other” …
The thing is I think, Levetov presents a vision of Mary as being virtuous, and icon, someone to be placed on a pedestal … unnaturally pure … which reading about Levertov yesterday makes sense if Levertov converted to the Roman Catholic faith. She presents what I’m thinking is a Catholic view of Mary.
I find myself more drawn to the idea of Mary as being an ‘ordinary” perhaps even a bit rambunctious girl and woman, who because of circumstances and the way the planets lined up, was not so much given a choice but who accepted the circumstances life presented her as inevitable with grace and love … I find the heroic acts of “ordinary” people fascinating .. I guess also because I don’t really believe anyone is ordinary .and even when we do respond in a common or “un-ordinary” way, the underlying groundswell and dynamics of all of us carrying on and interacting with each other en masse somehow works to create an extra-ordinary symphony …
I don’t so much see vocation as being an extra-ordinary calling from God to follow a ‘great destiny” and having to gather up courage to follow a path which doesn’t quite seem to fit … Vocation seems more to be about following a path which because of who we are (our nature, our upbringing, our history, our world-view, our quirks, our preferences) and where we find ourselves, our circumstances, as individuals and as a society … is a natural fit and inevitable path to follow.
It occurs to me that the perception of a “great destiny” is less about the individual and more the response of other people in community. I mean, would Michaelangelo be considered great if no-one else recognized his artistic ability? Would someone who devotes their entire life to taking care of others be considered to have a “great destiny” if others fail to respond or recognize their contribution to keeping the wheels of life turning … or tell their story forewards? It’s the old question … does a bell ring if no-one hears it? Would Mary be considered great if her story hadn’t been told many times and elevated to some amazing, mythological level… I’d like to think that a “great destiny” isn’t so dependent on the response or recognition of others …? Okay, I’m rambling … gotta go …
December 12, 2012 at 4:03 pm
Steve
It is a reference to the agony of Jesus in Gethsemane” My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” It had, I suppose a parallel in Mary at the annunciation. It has a parallel in all of our lives in that it is pride that keeps us from surrendering to God, giving up the sense of possession, the right we have to ourselves to take the path of obedience, it is that moment when we acquiesce with “sullen pride” and choose “uncomprehending” the path to life. We hold only as a promise the blessing, sometimes very great blessing or “great destinies” as in the case of Jesus, Mary, Abraham, Paul, and Job to name a few. Turned away from, the destiny that could have been is lost (“But the gates close, the pathway vanishes”) It is an innocent child like heart that “(perceives) instantly the astounding ministry she was offered “.
There is a prayer in A.W. Tozer’s “The Pursuit of God” that is near and dear to my heart that reflects that moment of surrender. The connection may not immediately be apparent.
“Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there.
In Jesus Name, Amen.”
December 13, 2012 at 9:13 am
Steve
As an adjunct to the above, I ran across this today:
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
C.S. Lewis “The Weight of Glory”
March 22, 2013 at 10:02 am
Kevin
Christopher, grateful to you for your blog and for this entry which focuses on Levertov’s great poem, “Annunciation.” I would like to make a comment about the text of the poem: you have taken it, I presume, from her collection “The Stream and the Sapphire” (1997) and that version of the poem inexplicably omits the final 18 lines of the original poem that she published in “A Door in the Hive” (1989). (I am not certain of this but I assume it was a mistake.) I don’t know if having the complete poem will address your theological question, but it occurred to me that you might want to have the correct (full) version of the poem in your post. Here are the lines your post (and Steam) omits following the line “but who was God”:
This was the moment not 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.
March 23, 2013 at 6:02 am
Christopher Page
Kevin, thank you so much for pointing this out. It helps my reading of the poem enormously. I have posted a further comment on the poem this morning. https://inaspaciousplace.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/apologies-to-denise-levertov/
March 23, 2013 at 5:56 am
Apologies to Denise Levertov | In A Spacious Place
[…] On December 12 last year, I posted a piece titled “Annunciation”, based on Denise Levertov’s poem of the same name. https://inaspaciousplace.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/annunciation/ […]
January 17, 2015 at 1:48 pm
Tom Trainer
Does anyone know the poem of the a annunciation starting with;
Mary in the garden mid the flowers of Spring
Comes a shining Angel there beneath the tree
Mary, says the Angel, happy shalt thou be
Thou shalt have a baby tender meek and mild
God the Father giveth unto thee a child
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April 11, 2016 at 7:43 am
tell me the story | in silence, humming softly
[…] Annunciation, Denise Levertov […]
December 11, 2016 at 6:06 pm
Camellia Stadts
I am often puzzled by the idea of “ordinary” as opposed to “extraordinary”.Every moment is God’s Grace, therefore not “ordinary” at all.