William Stanley Merwin Dark Poems
- 1. Remembering
There are threads of old sound heard over and over
phrases of Shakespeare or Mozart the slender
wands of the auroras playing out from them
into dark time the passing of a few
... - 2. Identity
When Hans Hofmann became a hedgehog
somewhere in a Germany that has
vanished with its forests and hedgerows
Shakespeare would have been a young actor
... - 3. The Speed Of Light
So gradual in those summers was the going
of the age it seemed that the long days setting out
when the stars faded over the mountains were not
leaving us even as the birds woke in full song and the dew
... - 4. Another River
The friends have gone home far up the valley
of that river into whose estuary
the man from England sailed in his own age
in time to catch sight of the late forests
... - 5. Vehicles
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... - 6. Shadow Hand
Duporte the roofer that calm voice
those sure hands gentling weathered tiles
into new generations or
half of him rising through a roof
... - 7. My Friends
My friends without shields walk on the target
It is late the windows are breaking
... - 8. The Ships Are Made Ready In Silence
Moored to the same ring:
The hour, the darkness and I,
Our compasses hooded like falcons.
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