It is always thrilling to come across a new Merwin poem and this one did not disappoint. Elegy for a Walnut Tree appears in Merwin's new collection, The Moon Before Morning. I have a blog with the man's name in its title and yet I barely knew he had a new book. Bad fan! Anyway, I'll be heading to the bookstore on my lunch break to pick it up. In the meantime, enjoy his words. I love his words!
Elegy for a Walnut Tree
W.S. Merwin
Old friend now there is no one alive
who remembers when you were young
it was high summer when I first saw you
in the blaze of day most of my life ago
with the dry grass whispering in your shade
and already you had lived through wars
and echoes of wars around your silence
through days of parting and seasons of absence
with the house emptying as the years went their way
until it was home to bats and swallows
and still when spring climbed toward summer
you opened once more the curled sleeping fingers
of newborn leaves as though nothing had happened
you and the seasons spoke the same language
and all these years I have looked through your limbs
to the river below and the roofs and the night
and you were the way I saw the world
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