Monday, April 26, 2021

Poetry Month, W. S. Merwin

 The Wings of Daylight

 ~W. S. Merwin


Brightness appears showing us everything

it reveals the splendors it calls everything

but shows it to each of us alone

and only once and only to look at

not to touch or hold in our shadows

what we see is never what we touch

what we take turns out to be something else

what we see that one time departs untouched

while other shadows gather around us

the world’s shadows mingle with our own

we had forgotten them but they know us

they remember us as we always were

they were at home here before the first came

everything will leave us except the shadows

but the shadows carry the whole story

at first daybreak they open their long wings


W. S. Merwin, “The Wings of Daylight” from Garden Time. Copyright © 2016 by W. S. Merwin.

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