Quotes from W.S. Merwin

On the door it says what to do to survive But we were not born to survive Only to live

and I was looking up out of a time of late blessings

Place" On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree what for not for the fruit the tree that bears the fruit is not the one that was planted I want the tree that stands in the earth for the first time with the sun already going down and the water touching its roots in the earth full of the dead and the clouds passing one by one over its leaves

he suggested I pray to the Muse get down on my knees and pray right there in the corner and he said he meant it literally

The wind lifts the whole branch of the poplar carries it up and out and holds it there while each leaf is the whole tree reaching from its roots in the dark earth out through all its rings of memory to where it has never been

we trust without giving it a thought that we will always see it as we see it once and that what we know is only a moment of what is ours and will stay we believe it as the moment slips away as lengthening shadows merge in the valley and a window kindles there like a first star what we see again comes to us in secret

As those who are gone now keep wandering through our words sounds of paper following them at untold distances so I wake again in the old house where at times I have believed that I was waiting for myself and many years have gone taking with them the semblance of youth reason after reason ranges of blue hills who did I think was missing those days neither here nor there my own dog waiting to be known

this is the white wind that you cannot believe here it is and the owl sails out to see whose turn it is tonight to be changed

Traveling Together" If we are separated, I will try to wait for you on your side of things your side of the wall and the water and of the light moving at its own speed even on leaves that we have seen I will wait on one side while a side is there

endless patience will never be enough the only hope is to be the daylight

A visitor to a garden sees the successes, usually. The gardener remembers mistakes and losses, some for a long time, and imagines the garden in a year, and in an unimaginable future.

I turned to the room and in the light from the street beheld one beautiful bare breast of a friend's friend gently rising and falling as though I were not there already not there

To remember Is not to rehearse, but to hear what never Has fallen silent.

The gods are what has failed to become of us

Everything that does not need you is real

even there a shining is flowing from all the stones though the eyes are not yet made that can see it

To The Rain" You reach me out of the age of the air clear falling toward me each one new if any of you has a name it is unknown but waited for you here that long for you to fall through it knowing nothing hem of the garment do not wait until I can love all that I am to know for maybe that will never be touch me this time let me love what I cannot know as the man born blind may love color until all that he loves fills him with color

Summer" Be of this brightness dyed Whose unrecking fever Flings gold before it goes Into voids finally That have no measure. Bird-sleep moonset, Island after island, Be of their hush On this tide that balance A time, for a time. Islands are not forever, Nor this light again, Tide-set, brief summer, Be of their secret That fears no other.

Place" On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree what for not the fruit the tree that bears the fruit is not the one that was planted I want the tree that stands in the earth for the first time with the sun already going down and the water touching its roots in the earth full of the dead and the clouds passing one by one over its leaves

Voices Over Water" There are spirits that come back to us when we have grown into another age we recognize them just as they leave us we remember them when we cannot hear them some of them come from the bodies of birds some arrive unnoticed like forgetting they do not recall earlier lives and there are distant voices still hoping to find us

How It Happens" The sky said I am watching to see what you can make out of nothing I was looking up and I said I thought you were supposed to be doing that the sky said Many are clinging to that I am giving you a chance I was looking up and I said I am the only chance I have then the sky did not answer and here we are with our names for the days the vast days that do not listen to us

here is the known hand again knowing remembering at night after the doubting and the news of age

we know from the beginning that the darkness is beyond us there is no explaining the dark it is only the light that we keep feeling a need to account for

Late in May as the light lengthens toward summer the young goldfinches flutter down through the day for the first time to find themselves among fallen petals cradling their day's colors in the day's shadows of the garden beside the old house