Hodgepodge 327/365 - Poetry (W. S. Merwin)

In honor of autumn's arrival, a poem by W. S. Merwin:

A Single Autumn

Ca. 1972

The year my parents died
one that summer one that fall
three months and three days apart
I moved into the house
where they had lived their last years
it had never been theirs
and was still theirs in that way
for a while
echoes in every room
without a sound
all the things that we
had never been able to say
I could not remember
doll collection
in a china cabinet
plates stacked on shelves
lace on drop-leaf tables
a dried branch of bittersweet
before a hall mirror
were all planning to wait
the glass doors of the house
remained closed
the days had turned cold
and out in the tall hickories
the blaze of autumn had begun
on its own
I could do anything


I find this poem (first published in the New Yorker in 2008) wistful and haunting, caught between material reality and vanishings and becomings. I never quite know what to think about Merwin, but I'm always left with a feeling of something between sadness and hope, joy and longing. There's an ineffability that I find at once puzzling (in a zen koan–like way) and very appealing.

Closer to now

And as a special treat, here's a lovely profile from a recent New Yorker (where over 200 of Merwin's poems have appeared since 1955). Former U.S. Poet Laureate, he has lived on the island of Maui for the past thirty-five years, where he and his wife preserve and regenerate native plants and palms. He will turn ninety in another nine days. Here is a Paris Review conversation between Merwin and Edward Hirsch from 1987. So much wisdom and beauty.