A Poem For A Monday

W.S. Merwin's newest book of poetry, Garden Time, came out in late 2016 and was a birthday present from my brother and sister-in-law. I'm just now diving in, perhaps sadly inspired to read it after learning of the recent death of Merwin's wife, Paula. 

As I mentioned before, this collection is deeply related to loss. Merwin has been losing his eyesight over the years and wrote these poems by dictating them to Paula. Merwin's work is so immersed in imagery - his surroundings, the natural world, what he sees, feels, hears, and touches. To think that he can't see the trees or the sun or his wife or his poetry is devastating to me. And now without Paula, will he write? Are these the last poems from the single most inspirational poet of our time? 

So there is loss, so much loss embedded in this book. I don't know these people. I met Merwin once very briefly at a reading and obviously never met Paula, but I'm so very sad. It's his perfect words, the situation, the multiple layers of loss, the aging, the place I am in right now. All of it I guess but this poem in particular, the last one in the book, had me on the floor.

The Present

W.S. Merwin

As they were leaving the garden

one of the angels bent down to them and whispered

I am to give you this

as you are leaving the garden

I do not know what it is

or what it is for

what you will do with it

you will not be able to keep it

but you will not be able

to keep anything

yet they both reached at once

for the present

and when their hands met

they laughed