Home > Work > The Second Four Books of Poems: The Moving Target / The Lice / The Carrier of Ladders / Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment
1 " You grieveNot that heaven does not exist butThat it exists without us "
― W.S. Merwin , The Second Four Books of Poems: The Moving Target / The Lice / The Carrier of Ladders / Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment
2 " For the Anniversay of My Death”Every year without knowing it I have passed the dayWhen the last fires will wave to meAnd the silence will set outTireless travelerLike the beam of a lightless starThen I will no longerFind myself in life as in a strange garmentSurprised at the earthAnd the love of one womanAnd the shamelessness of menAs today writing after three days of rainHearing the wren sing and the falling ceaseAnd bowing not knowing to what "
3 " When You Go Away"When you go away the wind clicks around to the northThe painters work all day but at sundown the paint fallsShowing the black wallsThe clock goes back to striking the same hourThat has no place in the yearsAnd at night wrapped in the bed of ashesIn one breath I wakeIt is the time when the beards of the dead get their growthI remember that I am fallingThat I am the reasonAnd that my words are the garment of what I shall never beLike the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy "