flahute » W.S. Merwin

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 13:32:30 +0000

FOG

You see, shore-hugging IS neither surety
Nor earns salt pride braving the long sea-sweeps.
This came up in the dark while some of us
Bore on in our sleep. Was there
In the dog-watch already, hiding the dog-star.
We woke into it, rising from dreams
Of sea-farms slanting on cliffs in clear light
And white houses winking there—sweet landmarks
But no help to us at the helm. Hours now
We have been drifting. It would be near noon.
Feeling the tides fight under our feet
Like a crawling of carpets. Turning our heads
To plck up the cape bell, the hoots of the shoal horn
That seem to come from all over. Distrusting
Every direction that is simple, to shoreward. This
Landfall is not vouchsafed us for
We have abused landfalls, loving them wrong
And too timorously. What coastline
Will not cloud over if looked at long enough?
Not through the rings running with us of enough
Horizons, not wide enough risking,
Not hard enough have we wrought our homing.
Drifting itself now is danger. Where are we?
Well, the needle swings still to north, and we know
Even in this blindness which way deep water lies.
Ships were not shaped for haven but if we were
There will be time for it yet. Let us turn head,
Out oars, and pull for the open. Make we
For mid-sea, where the winds are and stars too.
There will be wrung weathers, sea-shakings, calms,
Weariness, the giant water that rolls over our fathers,
And hungers hard to endure. But whether we float long
Or founder soon, we cannot be saved here.

— W.S. Merwin (b. 1927), American poet and translator.

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:59:01 +0000

TO PURITY

I have heard so much about you

if you claim to be you
I will know it’s not true

if you say nothing I will listen
as I do
with my own
old mixed feelings
of hope and reservation

hearing through them
whatever might be you

the way I see
the white light from
the beginning
through the colors of the garden
through a face an eye

— W.S. Merwin (b. 1927), American poet and translator.

DEBT

That ‘part
Of consciousness
That works’:

A virtue, then, a skill
Of benches and the shock

Of the press where an instant on the steel bed
The manufactured part——

New!
And imperfect. Not as perfect
As the die they made
Which was imperfect. Checked

To tolerance

Among the pin ups, notices, conversion charts,
And skills, so little said of it

— George Oppen (1908 – 1984), Pulitzer Prize winning American poet.

Thanksgiving …

flahute — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:23:07 +0000

Once again, it’s that time of year … time to sit back and reflect on all that I am thankful for.

Work continues to chug along. The bet that I made that our stock would rebound last fall has paid off nicely … I lowered my average cost significantly, and my portfolio is above water once again.
I met and dated a fabulous woman for a few months this past summer, and while it didn’t work out, I learned a lot about myself and how to handle myself in a relationship.
I rediscovered much of my love for the bicycle, and while my mileage still isn’t where it was several years ago, I doubled my 2008 mileage, and am looking forward to spending some quality time on the bike over Christmas down in Arizona
The Trooper is still chugging along, after a starter and clutch replacement for way too much money, but it should get me through another year or two before it dies completely
And yet again, last but certainly not least, I have good friends, both old and new, who all seem to genuinely care in one way or another.

Thank you Mom & Ralph, Ben & Doris, Geraly & D.J., Art & Rachel, Richard, Matt, Scottie, Carol, Jon & Ellie, Sly, Shauna, Jennie & Joel, Darrell & Theresa (whom I feel are rapidly becoming family), Marit & Dayna (who each, in their own way, helped me to realize and change some things about myself), Heather & Gigi (both of whose constant smiles remind me that life is to be enjoyed), and most especially, thank you Hayley, for allowing me to love again, if only for a little while.

THANKS

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

— W.S. Merwin (b. 1927), American poet and translator.

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:18:25 +0000

COMING TO THE MORNING

You make me remember all of the elements
the sea remembering all of its waves

in each of the waves there was always a sky made of water
and an eye that looked once

there was the shape of one mountain
and a blood kinship with rain

and the air for touch and for the tongue
at the speed of light

in which the world is made
from a single star

and our ears
are formed of the sea as we listen

— W.S. Merwin (b. 1927), American poet and translator.

Poetry Friday (a double dose)

flahute — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:37:05 +0000

TO MYSELF

Even when I forget you
I go on looking for you
I believe I would know you
I keep remembering you
sometimes long ago but then
other times I am sure you
were here a moment before
and the air is still alive
around where you were and I
think then I can recognize
you who are always the same
who pretend to be time but
you are not time and who speak
in the words but you are not
what they say you who are not
lost when I do not find you.

TO THE HAPPY FEW

Do you know who you are

O you forever listed
under some other heading
when you are listed at all

you whose addresses
when you have them
are never sold except
for another reason
something else that is
supposed to identify you

who carry no card
stating that you are —
what would it say you were
to someone turning it over
looking perhaps for
a date or for
anything to go buy

you with no secret handshake
no proof of membership
o way to prove such a thing
even to yourselves

you without a word
of explanation
and only yourselves
as evidence.

— W.S. Merwin (b. 1927), American poet and translator.

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:23:17 +0000

SUMMITS

Mountains bloom in spring they shine in summer
they burn in autumn
but they belong to winter
every day we travel farther and at evening
we come to the same country
mountains are waiting but is it for us
all day the night was shining through them
and many of the birds were theirs

DECEMBER NIGHT

The cold slope is standing in darkness
But the south of the trees is dry to the touch

The heavy limbs climb into the moonlight bearing feathers
I came to watch these
White plants older at night
The oldest
Come first to the ruins

And I hear magpies kept awake by the moon
The water flows through its
Own fingers without end
Tonight once more
I find a single prayer and it is not for men

— Both poems by W.S. Merwin (b. 1927), American poet, Pulitzer Prize winner

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 05:08:06 +0000

TO THE LIGHT OF SEPTEMBER

When you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or not

and for now it seems as though
you are still summer
still the high familiar
endless summer
yet with a glint
of bronze in the chill mornings
and the late yellow petals
of the mullein fluttering
on the stalks that lean
over their broken
shadows across the cracked ground

but they all know
that you have come
the seed heads of the sage
the whispering birds
with nowhere to hide you
to keep you for later

you
who fly with them

you who are neither
before nor after
you who arrive
with blue plums
that have fallen through the night

perfect in the dew

September 10, 2001

— W.S. Merwin (b. 1927), American poet, Pulitzer Prize winner

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:29:19 +0000

TO THE PRESENT TENSE

By the time you are
by the time you come to be
by the time you read this
by the time you are written
by the time you forget
by the time you are water through fingers
by the time you are taken for granted
by the time it hurts
by the time it goes on hurting
by the time there are no words for you
by the time you remember
but without the names
by the time you are in the papers
and on the telephone
passing unnoticed there too

who is it
to whom you come
before whose very eyes
you are disappearing
without making yourself known

— W.S. Merwin (b. 1927), American poet, Pulitzer Prize winner

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:07:43 +0000

Speech Alone

It happens that one pronounces
a few words just for oneself
alone on this strange earth
then the small white flower
the pebble like all those that went before
the sprig of stubble
find themselves re-united
at the foot of the gate
which one opens slowly
to enter the house of clay
while chairs, table, cupboard,
blaze in a sun of glory.

— Jean Follain (1903 – 1971) French lawyer, judge, and poet. Translated by W.S. Merwin.

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:50:13 +0000

Girl Lithe and Tawny

Girl lithe and tawny, the sun that forms
the fruits, that plums the grains, that curls seaweeds
filled your body with joy, and your luminous eyes
and your mouth that has the smile of the water.

A black ravenous sun bathes you in the thread
of your black mane, when you stretch your arms.
You play with the sun as with a little brook
and it leaves you with the eyes of dark ponds.

Girl lithe and tawny, nothing draws me towards you.
Everything bears me farther away, as though you were
    noon.
You are the frenzied youth of the bee,
the drunkeness of the wave, the power of the
    wheat-ear.

My sombre heart searches for you, nevertheless,
and I love your joyful body, your slender and flowing
    voice.
Dark daisy, sweet and definitive
like the wheat-field and the sun, the poppy and the water.

— Pablo Neruda (1904 – 1973), Chilean writer and Communist politician.
Translation by W.S. Merwin