This week two poems, both from W.S. Merwin’s collection, The Rain in the Trees:
The First Year
When the words had all been used
for other things
we saw the first day begin
out of the calling water
and the black branches
leaves no bigger than your fingertips
were unfolding on the tree of heaven
against the old stained wall
their green sunlight
that had never shone before
waking together we were the first
to see them
and we knew them then
all the languages were foreign and the first
year rose
Waking to the Rain
The Night of my birthday
I woke from a dream
of harmony
suddenly hearing
an old man not my father
I said but it was
my father grasping
my name as he fell
on the stone steps outside
just under the window
in the rain
I do not know
how many times
he may have called
before I woke
I was lying
in my parents’ room
in the empty house
both of them dead
that year
and the rain was falling
all around me
the only sound