More Merwin

I've been too long from the thought-provoking poetry of W.S Merwin. As often unsettling as comforting or peaceful, it is nonetheless a welcome, special friend who feels he can share it all with you, as if you understood and cared. I'm pleased to be back in his company for a time.

Merwin is a different take on things, a different feel. Sometimes you don't want to go there, but others, nothing will do but his verse. But it has changed a lot as the seasons of his life have changed--not in his brilliance, introspection, command of language, or his uncapitalized, unpunctuated verse, but what life has offered him or placed on his heart at that time. He's also one of those poets that it helps to read his bio, the key influences and experiences of his life; it adds insight and depth of understanding, I think.

All three of these poems come from his Pulitzer Prize winning collection, The Shadow of Sirius (2009). 


A Momentary Creed

I believe in the ordinary day

that is here at this moment and is me

I do not see it going its own way

but I never saw how it came to me

it extends beyond whatever I may

think I know and all that is real to me

it is the present that it bears away

where has it gone when it has gone from me

there is no place I know outside today

except for the unknown all around me

the only presence that appears to stay

everything that I call mine it lent me

even the way that I believe the day

for as long as it is here and is me

Heartland

From the beginning it belonged to distance

as the blue color of the mountains does

and though it existed on a map somewhere

and might be discovered by chance

and even be recognized perhaps

at an odd moment

it survived beyond

what could be known at the time

in its archaic

untaught language

that brings the bees to the rosemary

many years after it had been found

its true name remained

on the other side of knowledge

yet it was still there

like a season that has changed

but appears in the light

in the unspoken morning

One of the Butterflies

The trouble with pleasure is the timing

it can overtake me without warning
and be gone before I know it is here
it can stand facing me unrecognized
while I am remembering somewhere else
in another age or someone not seen
for years and never to be seen again
in this world and it seems that I cherish
only now a joy I was not aware of

when it was here although it remains
out of reach and will not be caught or named
or called back and if I could make it stay
as I want to it would turn to pain.