W.S. Merwin
For some time I thought there was time
and that there would always be time
for what I had a mind to do
and what I could imagine
going back to and finding it
as I had found it the first time
but by this time I do not know
what I thought when I thought back then
there is no time yet it grows less
there is the sound of rain at night
arriving unknown in the leaves
once without before or after
then I hear the thrush waking
at daybreak singing the new song
The first thing that struck me, other than how much I loved this poem even from the first read, was how the structure and repetition in the first stanza does so much to reinforce the words. "Time" is repeated just like time is constant. The line breaks don't signify any endings of phrases...they all flow together just like the seamlessness of time. It doesn't stop, it doesn't start, and you can't go back. But despite the eternality of time, you also can't get more for yourself. Your time ends.
Then suddenly in the second stanza we are in a vivid moment. The rain, the thrush, the new song. It seems a little hopeful to me as compared to the opening. Yes, we can't go back and time isn't endless for each of us but there are these things, these experiences that are moments to really know. I suppose it all comes back to doing the best we can to recognize those moments and live in them instead of outside of them, peering back wondering what we missed.
