W.S. Merwin
This hour along the valley this light at the end
of summer lengthening as it begins to go
this whisper in the tawny grass this feather floating
in the air this house of half a life or so
this blue door open to the lingering sun this stillness
echoing from the rooms like an unfinished sound
this fraying of voices at the edge of the village
beyond the dusty gardens this breath of knowing
without knowing anything this old branch from which
years and faces go on falling this presence already
far away this restless alien in the cherished place
this motion with no measure this moment peopled
with absences with everything that I remember here
eyes the wheeze of the gate greetings birdsongs in winter
the heart dividing dividing and everything
that has slipped my mind as I consider the shadow
all this has occurred to somebody else who has gone
as I am told and indeed it has happened again
and again and I go on trying to understand
how that could ever be and all I know of them
is what they felt in the light here in this late summer
Posting a W.S. Merwin poem seems like some sort of pseudo blog victory. In the beginning of Merwin and Merwin (holy catfish 5 years ago), I felt slightly more skilled at connecting the seemingly unrelated Merwins, barely held together by their existence on my list of "obsessions." Not that I will in any way bring this back to the dog, but regardless, I've basked in the glory of included Merwin's work here, so let's move on to why this poem is so great.
We find ourselves at the end of August, and even though I'm not going back to school I always get a little introspective, retrospective and generally just "spective" at this time of year. Blue that summer is nearly over, a tiny bit amped for fall coziness, and terrified of those impending long winter months. Merwin's narrator seems focused on the season and its passing, sort of contemplating (to me anyway) how all of the tiny moments he describes happened to someone else, many others, again and again throughout time.
We come, we go, others come, others go and late summer light continues to lengthen across all of it. I know it's so much more, but the final lines seem to reflect how I've been feeling the last few weeks. How could all of this that I see and feel and am part of also be seen and felt by others before me, with me and yet to come after me? How are these experiences not just mine? I'll never know anything about all of them except that they too feel the seasons and watch the light shift. All we really share is this universal passage of time, as daunting as it is to imagine.
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