Two by two in the ark of
the ache of it.

The lines juxtapose the biblical image of animals entering Noah’s ark “two by two” with an unexpected vessel: “the ache of it.” The effect is to recast salvation and pairing as something that happens inside pain rather than outside it—suggesting that intimacy, companionship, or the instinct to survive persists even when the only available shelter is suffering itself. The phrase “ark of the ache” implies both containment (pain as an enclosing space) and preservation (an ark as what carries life through catastrophe). Levertov’s compressed syntax heightens the sense of inevitability: the pairing is ritual-like, but the ritual is conducted within grief or longing.