W S Merwin Poems
A collection of select W S Merwin famous poems that were written by W S Merwin or written about the poet by other famous poets. PoetrySoup is a comprehensive educational resource of the greatest poems and poets on history.
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by
Merwin, W S
This is a place where a door might be
here where I am standing
In the light outside all the walls
there would be a shadow here
all day long
and a door into it
where now there is me
and somebody would come and knock
on this air
long after I have gone
and there in front of me a life
would open...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
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 bundles of roads.
The rain taking all its roads.
Nowhere.
Young as I am old as...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
Look soul
soul
barefoot presence
through whom blood falls as though
a water clock
and tears rise before they wake
I will take you
at last to
where the wind stops
by the river we
know
by that same water
and the nights are not separate
remember...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
How long ago the day is
when at last I look at it
with the time it has taken
to be there still in it
now in the transparent light
with the flight in the voices
the beginning in the leaves
everything I remember
and before it before me
present at the speed of light
in the distance that I am
who keep reaching out to it
seeing all the time...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
Temptations still nest in it like basilisks.
Hang it up till the rings fall....Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
The cold slope is standing in darkness
But the south of the trees is dry to the touch
The heavy limbs climb into the moonlight bearing feathers
I came to watch these
White plants older at night
The oldest
Come first to the ruins
And I hear magpies kept awake by the moon
The water flows through its
Own fingers without end
Tonight once more
I find a single prayer...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
In each world they may put us
Farther apart
Do not die
As this world is made I might
Live forever...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
Gray whale
Now that we are sinding you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing
I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day
The bewilderment will diminish like...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
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 then shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
By this part of the century few are left who believe
in the animals for they are not there in the carved parts
of them served on plates and the pleas from the slatted trucks
are sounds of shadows that possess no future
there is still game for the pleasure of killing
and there are pets for the children but the...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
My friends without shields walk on the target
It is late the windows are breaking
My friends without shoes leave
What they love
Grief moves among them as a fire among
Its bells
My friends without clocks turn
On the dial they turn
They part
My friends with names like gloves set out
Bare handed as they have lived
And nobody knows them
It is they that lay the wreaths at...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
There were years when I knew
the flower in the red stone walls
now in the courtyard where I have returned with you
we drink the wine of visitors
the temperature of the cellars
dusk is welling
out of the dried blood of the masonry
no hour remains on the sundial
by now the owls of the tower corners
are waking on their keepers' fists
but it is still day
out...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
In a dream I returned to the river of bees
Five orange trees by the bridge and
Beside two mills my house
Into whose courtyard a blind man followed
The goats and stood singing
Of what was older
Soon it will be fifteen years
He was old he will have fallen into his eyes
I took my eyes
A long way to the calenders
Room after room asking how...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
Moored to the same ring:
The hour, the darkness and I,
Our compasses hooded like falcons.
Now the memory of you comes aching in
With a wash of broken bits which never left port
In which once we planned voyages,
They come knocking like hearts asking:
What departures on this tide?
Breath of land, warm breath,
You tighten the cold around the navel,
Though all shores but the first...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
The sleep that flits on baby's eyes-does anybody know from where
it comes? Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where,
in the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with
glow-worms, there hang two shy buds of enchantment. From there it
comes to kiss baby's eyes.
The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps-does
anybody know where...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
Out of the dry days
through the dusty leaves
far across the valley
those few notes never
heard here before
one fluted phrase
floating over its
wandering secret
all at once wells up
somewhere else
and is gone before it
goes on fallen into
its own echo leaving
a hollow through the air
that is dry as before
where is it from
hardly anyone
seems to have noticed it
so far but who now
would have been listening
it...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
For Galway Kinnell
The rust a little pile of western color lies
At the end of its travels
Our instrument no longer.
Those who believe
In death have their worship cut out for them.
As for myself we
Continue
An old
Scar of light our trumpet
Pilgrims with thorns
To the eye of the cold
Under flags made by the blind
In one fist
Their letter that vanishes
If the hand...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
When you go away the wind clicks around to the north
The painters work all day but at sundown the paint falls
Showing the black walls
The clock goes back to striking the same hour
That has no place in the years
And at night wrapped in the bed of ashes
In one breath I wake
It is the time when the beards of the dead...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
Whenever I go there everything is changed
The stamps on the bandages the titles
Of the professors of water
The portrait of Glare the reasons for
The white mourning
In new rocks new insects are sitting
With the lights off
And once more I remember that the beginning
Is broken
No wonder the addresses are torn
To which I make my way eating the silence of animals
Offering snow to...Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
The star in my
Hand is falling
All the uniforms know what's no use
May I bow to Necessity not
To her hirelings...Read more of this...