W.S. Merwin (3)

Lake Shore in Half Light

There is a question I want to ask
and I can't remember it
I keep trying to
I know it is the same question
it has always been
in fact I seem to know
almost everything about it
all that reminds me of it
leading me to the lake shore
at daybreak or twilight
and to whatever is standing
next to the question
as a body stands next to its shadow
but the question is not a shadow
if I knew who discovered
zero I might ask
what there was before

W.S. Merwin, The Shadow of Sirius, Copper Canyon Press.

Manitonga Soutana

W.S. Merwin (2)

Dream of Koa Returning

Sitting on the steps of that cabin
that I had always known
with its porch and gray-painted floorboards
I looked out to the river
flowing beyond the big trees
and all at once you
were just behind me
lying watching me
as you did years ago
and not stirring at all
when I reached back slowly
hoping to touch
your long amber fur
and there we stayed without moving
listening to the river
and I wondered whether
it might be a dream
whether you might be a dream
whether we both were a dream
in which neither of us moved

W. S. Merwin, The Shadow of Sirius, Copper Canyon Press.

Animals

W.S. Merwin (1)

Still Morning

It appears now that there is only one
age and it knows
nothing of age as the flying birds know
nothing of the air they are flying through
or of the day that bears them up
through themselves
and I am a child before there are words
arms are holding me up in the shadow
voices murmur in a shadow
as I watch one patch of sunlight moving
across the green carpet
in a building
gone long ago and all the voices
silent and each word they said in that time
silent now
while I go on seeing that patch of sunlight

W.S. Merwin, The Shadow of Sirius, Copper Canyon Press.
voir : www.poets.org