Cheated

I will admit it for all the world to see, or for all of my zero blog readers to see.  I cheated on Merwin yesterday--I posted a Langston Hughes poem.  The horror!  To redeem myself, here is Beggars and Kings, one of my favorites from Merwin's collection, Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment.  I love it.

Beggars and Kings
W.S. Merwin

In the evening
all the hours that weren't used
are emptied out
and the beggars are waiting to gather them up
to open them
to find the sun in each one
and teach it its beggar's name
and sing to it It is well
through the night

but each of us
has his own kingdom of pains
and has not yet found them all
and is sailing in search of them day and night
infallible undisputed unresting
filled with a dumb use
and its time
like a finger in a world without hands