PLACE
On the last day of the world
I would want to plant a tree
what for
not for the fruit
the tree that bears the fruit
is not the one that was planted
I want the tree that stands
in the earth for the first time
with the sun already
going down
and the water
touching its roots
in the earth full of the dead
and the clouds passing
one by one
over its leaves
— W.S. Merwin, from his book The Rain in the Trees (1998, A.A. Knopf).
Copyright © 1988 by W. S. Merwin. Used by permission of the publisher.
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