They are related or connected, these three poems—and not just because they are all from W.S. Merwin’s collection, Present Company. Those who follow the poetry I post, and my comments on it, recognize that sharing poems somehow related is something I enjoy doing. Most often there are two or three poems from the same collection or different collections by the same author, even poetry of different authors, but somehow topically or artistically connected.
There is much that could be said of these three, each one, in pairs, or together. Certainly each of them offers Merwin’s unique style and extraordinary command of language and form to paint the topic in both interesting and illustrative terms. But there is more, of course. I’d ask you to consider what more there is in common to the three notions of luck, mistakes, and God as Merwin treats them—how each is so difficult to get definitions, purpose, and predictability to adhere to, how the form and vocabulary chosen to approach them is by addressing the topics or notions themselves in the second person as if real, and how he employs a simple story-sharing monologue with each of them.
And then, as you read them, one after the other, consider how often so many of the statements or ideas shared in each could have been used to good and consistent effect in one of the other two. Consider the extent to which these three notions are considered anchored in superstition, are thought random events that appear destiny through happenstance, are thought extensions of our emotional need for order and explanations, and are intertwined and complement each other in their descriptions and roles. Consider also the extent to which they may yet be considered a reality, even truth, in our experience and lives, perhaps rightly. Consider whether, as such, they might conflate into a larger deterministic phenomenon, somehow spiritually, deistically or cosmologically lawful—which might also include yet another deterministic notion, fate or destiny. Or are these notions more likely—individually and collectively—mere variations on the perceptions of happenstance and superstition? In these poems, W.S. Merwin often gives us reason to consider all those things as he is questioning or denying them, sharing implied general views that dismiss them, and all the time while speaking to them insightfully, descriptively, in the second person as if they were surely quite real.
Let us begin with luck.
To Luck*
In the cards and at the bend in the road
we never saw you
in the womb and in the cross fire
in the numbers
whatever you had your hand in
which was everything
we were told never
to put our faith in you
but to bow to you humbly after all
because in the end there was nothing
else we could do
but we were not to believe in you
and though we might coax you with pebbles
kept warm in the hand
or coins or relics
of vanishing animals
observance rituals
none of them binding upon you
who make no promises
we might do such things only
not to neglect you
and risk your disfavor
O you who are never the same
who are secret as the day when it comes
you whom we explain
whenever we can
without understanding
Could the poet just as easily have replaced the title “To Luck” with “To God”? Next, let’s take a look at the topic of mistakes?
To the Mistakes*
You are the ones who
were not recognized
in time although you
may have been waiting
in full sight in broad
day from the first step
that set out toward you
and although you may
have been prophesied
hung round with warnings
had your big pictures
in all the papers
yet in the flesh you
did not look like that
each of you in turn
seemed like no one else
you are the ones
who are really my own
never will leave me
forever after
or ever belong
to anyone else
you are the ones I
must have needed
the ones who led me
in spite of all
that was said about you
you placed my footsteps
on the only way
And couldn’t many verses in “To the Mistakes” have been employed to good and consistent effect in “To Luck”? But now, on to the God(s). As you read this, please remain open-minded, nonjudgmental about any agenda or view—for it can be seen differently from different perspectives from stanza to stanza. For me, it’s simply a succinct chronicling or history of some types of experiences between man and God. But after you’ve read it to the end, you may want to read it all again and rest with those last three lines.
To the Gods*
When did you stop
telling us what we could believe
when did you take that one step
only one
above
all that
as once you stepped
out of each of the stories
about you one after the other
and out of whatever
we imagined we knew
of you
who were the light
to begin with
and all the darkness
at the same time
and the voice in them
calling crying
and the enormous answer
neither coming nor going
but too fast to hear
you let us believe
the names for you
whenever we heard them
you let us believe the stories
how death came to be
how the light happened
how the beginning began
you let us believe
all that
then you let us believe
that we had invented you
and that we no longer
believed in you
and that you were only stories
that we did not believe
you with no
moment for beginning
no place to end
one step above
all that
listen to us
wait
believe in us
Are there not many verses in “To the Gods” that could have been placed to good and consistent effect in “To Luck”? And if those beginning questions posed interest you, then please go back, read them again, and then read the poems again with those questions in mind.
*Poems found in Present Company, by W.S. Merwin (2007), Pulitzer Prize winner and former Poet Laureate of the U.S.
