my one love

.

They say the sun will come back
at midnight
after all
my one love

but we know how the minutes
fly out into
the dark trees
and vanish

like the great ʻōhiʻas and honey creepers
and we know how the weeks
walk into the
shadows at midday

at the thought of the months I reach for your hand
it is not something
one is supposed
to say

we watch the bright birds in the morning
we hope for the quiet
daytime together
the year turns into air

but we are together in the whole night
with the sun still going away
and the year
coming back

—W.S. Merwin

THE SOLSTICE

Rain in the Trees

.

going

 

.

Only humans believe
there is a word for goodbye
we have one in every language
one of the first words we learn
it is made out of greeting
but they are going away
the raised hand waving
the face the person the place
the animal the day
leaving the word behind
and what it was meant to say
 

—W.S. Merwin

.

travelling together

 

.

 

If we are separated I will 
try to wait for you 
on your side of things 

your side of the wall and the water 
and of the light moving at its own speed 
even on leaves that we have seen 
I will wait on one side 

while a side is there 


—W.S. Merwin

.

a sweet question

.

Skill in living, awareness of belonging to the world, delight in being part of the world, always tends to involve knowing our kinship as animals with animals… Relationship among all things appears to be complex and reciprocal - always at least two-way, back and forth. It seems that nothing is single in this universe, and nothing goes one way.

In this view, we humans appear as particularly lively, intense, aware nodes of relation in an infinite network of connections, simple or complicated, direct or hidden, strong or delicate, temporary or very long-lasting. A web of connections, infinite but locally fragile, with and among everything - all beings - including what we generally class as things, objects.


—Ursula K. Le Guin
Deep in Admiration (Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet)

. . .

These days I can see us clinging to each other as we are swept along by the current I am clinging to you to keep you from being swept away and you are clinging to me to keep me from being swept away from you we see the shores blurring past as we hold each other in the rushing current the daylight rushes unheard far above us how long will we be swept along in the daylight how long will we cling together in the night and where will it carry us together

—W.S. Merwin

Here Together
January 2016 

 . . .

The moon came to me last night
With a sweet question.

She said,
“The sun has been my faithful lover 
For millions of years.
Whenever I offer my body to him 
Brilliant light pours from his heart.
Thousands then notice my happiness 
And delight in pointing
toward my beauty.

Hafiz, 
Is it true that our destiny
Is to turn into Light
Itself?”

And I replied, 
"Dear moon, 
Now that your love is maturing,
We need to sit together
Close like this more often

So I might instruct you 
How to become
Who you
Are!"


—Hafiz

.

bless

.

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
To Paula in Late Spring, excerpt

.

 

living with the news

.

Can I get used to it day after day
a little at a time while the tide keeps
coming in faster the waves get bigger
building on each other breaking records
this is not the world that I remember
then comes the day when I open the box
that I remember packing with such care
and there is the face that I had known well
in little pieces staring up at me
it is not mentioned on the front pages
but somewhere back near the real estate
among the things that happen every day
to someone who now happens to be me
and what can I do and who can tell me
then there is what the doctor comes to say
endless patience will never be enough
our only hope is to be the daylight


—W.S. Merwin
from his newest book Garden Time

.

all the flowers are forms of water

.



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 afterlife
that lived there long before you were born

see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning


–W.S. Merwin
Rain Light

.

a night fragrance

 

.

Now I am old enough to remember
people speaking of immortality
as though it were something known to exist
a tangible substance that might be acquired
to be used perhaps in the kitchen
every day in whatever was made there
forever after and they applied the word
to literature and the names of things
names of persons and the naming of other
things for them and no doubt they repeated
that word with some element of belief
when they named a genus of somewhat more than
a hundred species of tropical trees and shrubs
some with flowers most fragrant at night
for James Theodore Tabernaemontanus
of Heidelberg physician and botanist
highly regarded in his day over
four centuries ago immortality
might be like that with the scattered species
continuing their various evolutions
the flowers opening by day or night
with no knowledge of bearing a name
of anyone and their fragrance if it
reminds at all not reminding of him


—W.S. Merwin

.

hearing the names of the valleys

.

Finally the old man is telling

the forgotten names

and the names of the stones they came from

for a long time I asked him the names

and when he says them at last

I hear no meaning

and cannot remember the sounds

I have lived without knowing

the names for the water

from one rock

and the water from another

and behind the names that I do not have

the color of water flows all day and all night

the old man tells me the name for it

and as he says it I forget it

there are names for the water

between here and there

between places now gone

except in the porcelain faces

on the tombstones

and places still here

and I ask him again

the name for the color of water

wanting to be able to say it

as though I had known it all my life

without giving it a thought


—W.S. Merwin
from The Rain in the Trees, 1988

.
merwinconservancy
.

Looking for Mushrooms at Sunrise

.

 

When it is not yet day
I am walking on centuries of dead chestnut leaves
In a place without grief
Though the oriole
Out of another life warns me
That I am awake
In the dark while the rain fell
The gold chanterelles pushed through a sleep that was not mine
Waking me
So that I came up the mountain to find them
Where they appear it seems I have been before
I recognize their haunts as though remembering
Another life
Where else am I walking even now
Looking for me


— W.S. Merwin
The Lice, 1967

.

Looking Up in the Garden

 

 

.

 

These trees have no names‬
whatever we call them

where will the meanings be
when the words are forgotten

will I see again
where are you

will you be sitting
in Fran’s living room

will the dream come back
will I know where I am

will there be birds


—W.S. Merwin
The Moon Before Morning

.
merwinconservancy
Ophélie ~ Constantin Meunier
largerloves
.

 

 

air

.

Naturally it is night.
Under the overturned lute with its
One string I am going my way
Which has a strange sound.

This way the dust, that way the dust.
I listen to both sides
But I keep right on.
I remember the leaves sitting in judgment

And then winter.
I remember the rain with its bundle of roads.
The rain taking all its roads.
Nowhere.

Young as I am, old as I am,
I forget tomorrow, the blind man.
I forget the life among the buried windows.
The eyes in the curtains.

The wall
Growing through the immortelles.
I forget silence
The owner of the smile.

This must be what I wanted to be doing,
Walking at night between the two deserts,
Singing.


–W.S. Merwin

.

On 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

.

Separation

.

 Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

–W. S. Merwin




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