the flight of language

Some of the leaves stay on all winter

and spring comes without knowing

whether there is suffering in them

or ever was

and what it is in the tongue they speak

that cannot be remembered by listening

for the whole time that they are on the tree

and then as they fly off with the air 

that always through their lives was there

~ W.S. Merwin

from The Pupil

 

 

to the sorrow string

You invisible one

resounding on your own

whatever the others 

happen to be playing

source of a note

not there in the score

under whatever key

unphrased continuo

gut stretched between

the beginning and the end

what would the music

be without you

since even through

the chorus of pure joy

the tears hear you

and nothing can restrain them

~ W.S. Merwin

still morning

It appears now that there is only one

age and it knows

nothing of age as the flying birds know

nothing of the air they are flying through

or of the day that bears them up

through themselves

and I am a child before there are words

arms are holding me up in a shadow

voices murmur in a shadow

as I watch one patch of sunlight moving

across the green carpet

in a building

gone long ago and all the voices

silent and each word they said in that time

silent now

while I go on seeing that patch of sunlight

~ W. S. Merwin

from Collected Poems (1996 - 2011)

art by emile claus

dew light

Now in the blessed days of more and less

when the news about time is that each day

there is less of it I know none of that

as I walk out through the early garden

only the day and I are here with no

before or after and the dew looks up.

without a number or a present age

~ W. S. Merwin

to myself

.

Even when I forget you

I go on looking for you

I believe I would know you

I keep remembering you

sometimes long ago but then

other times I am sure you

were here a moment before

and the air is still alive

around where you were and I 

think then I can recognize

you who are always the same

who pretend to be time but 

you are not time and who speak

in the words but you are not 

what they say you who are not 

lost when I do not find you

.

~ W. S. Merwin

from Present Company

.

rain light

All day the stars watch from long ago

my mother said I am going now

when you are alone you will be all right

whether or not you know you will know

look at the old house in the dawn rain

all the flowers are forms of water

the sun reminds them through a white cloud

touches the patchwork spread on the hill

the washed colors of the after life

that lived there long before you were born 

see how they wake without a question

even through the whole world is burning

~ W. S. Merwin

from The Shadow of Sirius
iris by van gogh

Grace Note

It is at last any morning

not answering to a name

I wake before there is light

hearing once more that same

music without repetition 

or beginning playing 

away into itself

in silence like a wave

a unison in its own

key that I seem

to have heard before I 

was listening but by the time

I hear it now it is gone

as when on a morning

alive with sunlight

almost at the year's end

a feathered breath a bird

flies in at the open window

then vanishes leaving me

believing what I do not see

~  W. S. Merwin

art by Van Gogh

to Paula in late spring

Let me imagine that we will come again

when we want to and it will be spring

we will be no older than we ever were

the worn griefs will have eased like the early cloud

through which the morning slowly comes to itself

and the ancient defenses against the dead

will be done with and left to the dead at last

the light will  be as it is now in the garden

that we have made here these years together

of our long evenings and astonishment

~ W.S. Merwin

art by Van Gogh

present

As they were leaving the garden
one of the angels bent down to them and whispered

I am to give you this
as you are leaving the garden

I do not know what it is
or what it is for
what you will do with it

you will not be able to keep it
but you will not be able

to keep anything
yet they both reached at once

for the present
and when their hands met

they laughed 

~ W.S. Merwin

 from  Garden Time

art by Tiffany Gomez

for the anniversary of my death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what 

  ~ W.S. Merwin

 from The Second Four Books of Poems

 art by Hughie O'Donoghue

parts of a tune

One old man keeps humming the same few notes

of some song he thought he had forgotten 

back in the days when as he knows there was 

no word for life in the language

and if they wanted to say eyes or heart

they would hold up a leaf and he remembers

the big tree where it rose from the dry ground

and the way the birds carried water in their voice

they were all the color of their fear of the dark

and as he sits there humming he remembers

some of the words they come back to him now

he smiles hearing them come and go

~ W.S. Merwin

from The Shadow of Sirius

now it is clear

Now it is clear to me that no leaves are mine
no roots are mine
that wherever I go I will be a spine of smoke in the forest
and the forest will know it
we will both know it

and that birds vanish because of something
that I remember
flying through me as though I were a great wind
as the stones settle into the ground
the trees into themselves
staring as though I were a great wind
which is what I pray for

it is clear to me that I cannot return
but that some of us will meet once more
even here
like our own statues
and some of us still later without names
and some of us will burn with the speed
of endless departures

and be found and lost no more 

 

  ~ W.S. Merwin

from The Carrier of Ladders

 

to the new year

With what stillness at last

you appear in the valley

your first sunlight reaching down

to touch the tips of a few

high leaves that do not stir

as though they had not noticed

and did not know you at all

then the voice of a dove calls

from far away in itself

to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you

here and now whether or not

anyone hears it this is

where we have come with our age

our knowledge such as it is

and our hopes such as they are

invisible before us

untouched and still possible

~ W. S. Merwin

from Present Company

to the happy few

Do you know who you are 

O you forever listed

under some other heading

when you are listed at all 

you whose addresses

when you have them

are never sold except

for another reason

something else that is

supposed to identify you 

who carry no card

stating that you are—

what would it say you were

to someone turning it over

looking perhaps for

a date or for

anything to go by 

you with no secret handshake

no proof of membership

no way to prove such a thing

even to yourselves 

you without a word

of explanation

and only yourselves

as evidence

~ W.S. Merwin

 from Collected Poems

photo by ansel adams

elegy for a walnut tree

Old friend now there is no one alive

who remembers when you were young

it was high summer when I first saw you

in the blaze of day most of my life ago

with the dry grass whispering in your shade

and already you had lived through wars

and echoes of wars around your silence

through days of parting and seasons of absence

with the house emptying as the years went their way

until it was home to bats and swallows

and still when spring climbed toward summer

you opened once more the curled sleeping fingers

of newborn leaves as though nothing had happened

you and the seasons spoke the same language

and all these years I have looked through your limbs

to the river below and the roofs and the night

and you were the way I saw the world

~ W. S. Merwin

utterance

Sitting over words

very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing

not far

like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark

the echo of everything that has ever

been spoken

still spinning its one syllable

between the earth and silence

~ W. S. Merwin

 from The Rain in the Trees

near field

This is not something new or kept secret

the tilled ground unsown in late spring

the dead are not separate from the living

each has one foot in the unknown

and cannot speak for the other

the field tells none of its turned story

it lies under its low cloud like a waiting river

the dead made this out of their hunger

out of what they had been told

out of the pains and shadows

and bowels of animals

out of turning and 

coming back singing

about another time

~ W. S. Merwin

from The Shadow of Sirius

photo by Kathleen Connally

utterance

Sitting over words

very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing

not far

like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark

the echo of everything that has ever

been spoken 

still spinning its one syllable

between the earth and silence

~ W. S. Merwin

exercise

First, forget what time it is

for an hour

do it regularly every day

then forget what day of the week it is

and do this regularly for a week

then forget what country you are in

and practice doing it in company

for a week

and then do them together

for a week

with as few breaks as possible 

follow these by forgetting to add

or to subtract

it makes no difference

you can change them

around after a week

both will help you later

to forget how to count 

forget how to count

starting with your own age

starting with how to count backwards

starting with even numbers

with Roman numerals

starting with fractions of Roman numerals

with the old calendar

going on to the old alphabet

going on to the alphabet

forgetting it all until everything

is continuous again 

go on to forgetting elements

starting with water

proceeding to earth

rising in fire 

forget fire 

~ W.S. Merwin

from Migration: New and Selected Poems

 with thanks to love is a place

photo by Ellis Nadler

near field

This is not something new or kept secret

the tilled ground unsown in late spring

the dead are not separate from the living

each has one foot in the unknown

and cannot speak for the other

the field tells none of its turned story

it lies under its low cloud like a waiting river

the dead make this out of their hunger

out of what they had been told

out of the pains and shadows

and bowels of animals

out of turning and 

coming back singing

about another time

~ W. S. Merwin

from The Shadow of Sirius

photo by Kathleen Connally