Showing posts with label W.S. Merwin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label W.S. Merwin. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

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
 
 



Saturday, October 24, 2020

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






Friday, July 3, 2020

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


Wednesday, June 17, 2020

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





Monday, June 15, 2020

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

.

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

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





Monday, May 11, 2020

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



Wednesday, April 29, 2020

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



Monday, April 27, 2020

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


Tuesday, April 23, 2019

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
 

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

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




Friday, October 10, 2014

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






Thursday, April 24, 2014

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




Saturday, March 16, 2013

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


Saturday, February 9, 2013

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



Thursday, October 25, 2012

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





Friday, September 7, 2012

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



Tuesday, March 27, 2012

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