W.S. Merwin
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W.S. Merwin is named Poet Laureate. From his earliest scribblings, Mr. Merwin has had a conception of poetry that is strongly tied to music. “It’s close to the oral tradition,” he said. “It’s close to song. You have to hear it before you can understand it.”
Although raised in the Western tradition, he said he feels more affinity with an Eastern one, “being part of the universe and everything living.” With that exhilarating connection comes responsibility, however. “You don’t just exploit it and use it and throw it away any more than you would a member of your family,” he said. “You’re not separate from the frog in the pond or the cockroach in the kitchen.”
Metta.
“For a Coming Extinction,” from “The Lice”:
Gray whale
Now that we are sending you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing
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For the Anniversary of My Death - 1967
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveller
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what
