Gift & Thanks: W.S. Merwin

I like and read poetry. Most of you know that. But I’ve not been moved to post any poetry here or on my other sites for some time. In search of something special to think about—and also to share—I finally returned to old favorite W.S. Merwin, and pored over some of his earlier collections. Two poems, one each from a 1973 and a 1988 collection, connected with me because, in part at least, they seemed to be related and connected to each other.

Much is rightly made of the notions of identity, of talents or gifts received and shared, and to personal calling. This poem is about a gift given, and to be given again in its embrace and sharing with others. What that gift is, whether his muse and poetry, his poetic appreciation, some other, more spiritual sharing and direction, I leave to your understanding. Knowing something of his life, and his paths walked, I see the possibilities of those things and more. Let it speak to you as it will.

Gift¹

I have to trust what was given to me
if I am to trust anything
it led the stars over the shadowless mountain
what does it not remember in its night and silence
what does it not hope knowing itself no child of time

what did it not begin what will it not end
I have to hold it up in my hands as my ribs hold up my heart
I have to let it open its wings and fly among the gifts of the unknown
again in the mountain I have to turn
to the morning

I must be led by what was given to me
as streams are lead by it
and braiding flight of birds
the gropings of veins the learning of plants
the thankful days
breath by breath

I call to it Nameless One O Invisible
Untouchable Free
I am nameless I am divided
I am invisible I am untouchable
and empty
nomad live with me
be my eyes
my tongue and my hands
my sleep and my rising
out of chaos
come and be given


Gratitude is such a natural response to any life lived with  a sense of accomplishment, affirmation or possibilities, to the life attended by a measure of joy or hope, even for just the resolve to hold on and see if things won’t be better, more rewarding or comforting, tomorrow. In my faith, we are counseled to nurture a sense of gratitude in all things at all times. In this poem, whatever his gifts received and shared, W.S. Merwin reflects that same sentiment about life lived, but whether in times of plenty or penury, in satisfaction or despair, even if just for the relief of pulling the shade on another day full of pain, sadness, or resentment. It is a challenging, rather saintly disposition that he appears to assume or reflect.

That is one view of the poem. Let's read the poem, and then consider a second, very different view.

Thanks²

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is

On the other hand, in “Thanks”, Merwin may not understand it that way at all—or, at least that may not be his principal message and rhetorical device. Consistent with the increasing sense of loss, sadness and darkness as the poem proceeds, it may be that he is employing a more cynical message and a rhetorical devise that in the end conveys exactly the opposite meaning. The “thank you” feels more and more hollow, empty, as the situations become more despairing and hopeless, and still more so as a false gratitude is elevated to “thank you, thank you, faster and faster."

 

So no, if this view is closer to the mark, then he is not holding up a Christian or other spiritual or philosophical notion of being thankful for all things at all times, however good, however bad. Rather, he is likely implying in strong rhetorical terms that, for most of the dispiriting circumstances in the latter half of the poem—and certainly with the cumulative weight of them all—only a relative few of we mortals might muster the emotional strength (or dissociation with human life) to feel and express honest, heart-felt gratitude—whether through religious faith, spiritual or philosophical disciplines, or one’s singular strength of personality.

 

Some background on M.S. Merwin: his earlier poetry was noted for its anti-Vietnam war and environmentalist sentiments in the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection The Carrier of Ladders (1970) and others. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he abandoned his Christian faith and turned his attention to his poetry, prose, and his more secular, social concerns. He then moved to Hawaii to pursue further his interest in advocating for the environment, and his growing interest in Zen Buddhism. He was and is an environmental warrior, albeit a gentle one. With that in mind, let's return to our conversation about “Thanks.”

 

Increasingly, as the poem moves toward its conclusion, there is the sense of futility in the nature and experience of mankind in dealing with mortality, human limitations and failings, the brittleness of his institutional constructs--and his inability to reform and change the things that seem so apparently in need of change. And the normal expression of gratitude, “thanks,” so appropriately employed in the first stanza, turns quickly into a hollow, cynical parody, a response that, by the inappropriateness of the circumstances of its use, makes clearer that the opposite meaning now likely adheres to it. It is now a wholly appropriate response of a very different nature, a subdued voice of disapproval, fear and distrust in the face of an unresponsive society, business world, or government that isn’t even paying attention. And so with each next insult to sense and sensibility, the refrain cynically drones on through the continuing despair: “Thank you, thank you.”

 

I like basic elements of both interpretations, and perhaps it's possible to craft an interpretation that incorporates the best of both. Or, perhaps it's sufficient to just recognize the way the use of the word "thanks" changes or evolves from the more normal context to the more inappropriate context, where its rhetorical use better dramatizes his point. And maybe there's more still to be found or experienced in this verse. I know I'm not satisfied with my understandings yet.

   ¹ W.S. Merwin, Writings To An Unfinished Accompaniment (1973) and The Second Four Books of Poems (1993)
   ² W.S. Merwin, The Rain in the Trees (1988) and  Migration: New and Selected Poems (2005)