The Big Ask: A Reflection on Denise Levertov’s ‘Annunciation’

By Julia Lane
July 2026

Denise Levertov draws me in easily to the familiar scene: she jogs my memory about details I can recognise from countless artistic representations celebrating this significant moment. There has been movement, a greeting has been given and acknowledged, and now there is shocked stillness. In the breaking of the third line comes the sudden physicality of this ‘astounding’ interruption into a composed life.

Levertov does not try to describe the space between the messenger and the woman, but I feel it. I am within it, ‘suspended’ inside the moment of discernment, poised in expectation. ‘Meek obedience’ is what I am blindly expecting to be made aware of, but now I am being guided towards a deep understanding that this obedience can only be truly obedient, this ‘ministry’ only truly consented to, if it is wholly understood, the completeness of its breadth and depth acknowledged, and the power of its demands felt, accepted and embraced.

The dozen lines that set out how it will be to expect and bear this child, who is God, rock between opposites: infinite/finite, weight/lightness, nine months/Eternity, in a rhythm which might be reflecting Mary’s feelings as they move, in this still space of discernment, between dread and bravery, self-doubt and courage, the short view and the long view:

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.

The waiting time ends with light and air, milk and love: the universal humanity of the experience of motherhood is transformed as Mary will be transformed.

Levertov sets Mary’s grave and courteous dignity and courage as the context for a fitting response to the ‘momentous destiny’ brought to her in ‘solemn grandeur’. The dialogue is in her heart and in her soul while she holds her breath. I feel the quivering in the angel’s wings as he stands and hovers, waiting. There is respect in the waiting, respect for her holiness and for her integrity to make the choice of her own free will. God is asking for a consciously happy answer, not forced or submissive:

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.

‘God waited’ is a statement that stands alone on the page as an unexpected and powerful expression of God’s trust in the holy humanity of the being He has created. He knows me better than I know myself but He needs me to see more clearly before I make the choice He knows I am going to make.

Mary’s decision is a choice to which, in her humanity, a child of God, willed by God, she must give the considered and intended response it deserves. The turbulent nature of the process of discernment is reflected in the juxtaposition of unexpected negatively charged language in the final lines of the second stanza and, again, in the first lines of the final stanza, with its swooping down into hard consonants and emphatic rhythms (‘gritted teeth, raging, coerced’) bringing out a fierceness and a harshness that hints at the suffering which will come in time in consequence of her consent. In moving the mood to and fro between Mary’s emotional reactions Levertov gives us the heft and magnitude of the choice. The inner dialogue in Mary’s heart is all about the big ask and the big yes.

A baby is born from darkness into light, from enclosure into openness; Mary’s choice to consent lights up the room, and opens her ‘utterly’, so that she can end the silent stillness and utter the words of consent. The waiting time ends and her consent lights up the iridescent wings of the angel, a symbol of the jewel-like intensity of her feelings about accepting the responsibility of this gift from God.

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.

Levertov characterises Mary’s life as ‘unparalleled’ for her ‘compassion and intelligence’. Most lives are ‘ordinary lives’ but into each ordinary life there can come the call to hold one’s breath, to become still and listen to the Spirit, to recognise what is being asked and try to comprehend its mystery, to strive for the authentic response, and most of all to seize the courage to consent to the call.

Levertov invites me to be ready in my ordinary life to recognise the messenger’s interruption, and to take ‘to heart’ the proffering of the lily and the first words of greeting. The invitation is to take the moment that is needed to understand where I am on the ‘roads of light and storm’ and to discover the truth and the reality and the integrity of the choice being asked for, in order that I may reach by myself what God has willed for me. I am being guided how to consent fully and gladly and free of self-delusion, in that quiet, stilled, Spirit-filled space within my heart. My ‘ministry’ is my ‘destiny’. I have been brought to this point at this moment to become ready for the sudden and unannounced guest who brings the offer to which I must discern my response without delay. The example of Mary’s purposeful discernment is a direction to me to go forward before the ‘gates close’ and ‘the pathway vanishes’. God does not ‘smite’ the ordinary life that continues in its ordinariness ‘with relief’, but that life has lost connection to a destiny prepared for that life alone.

Mary finds the strength and courage to turn away from ‘dread’, ‘weakness’ and ‘despair’. She knows these feelings but knowingly and willingly she turns towards the light. She asks simply, ‘How can this be?’, and believes in the truth of the answer. Her inner dialogue has broken through to the surface so that she can ask for what she needs. Mary’s courage enables her to consent and in turn the consent enlightens her, ‘bravest of all humans’.

Levertov’s ‘Annunciation’ first appeared in A Door in the Hive (1986) and later in The Stream and the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes (1997). The poem is online  at this link.