THE NOMAD FLUTE
You that sang to me once sing to me now
let me hear your long lifted note
survive with me
the star is fading
I can think farther than that but I forget
do you hear me
do you still hear me
does your air
remember you
oh breath of morning
night song morning song
I have with me
all that I do not know
I have lost none of it
but I know better now
than to ask you
where you learned that music
where any of it came from
once there were lions in China
I will listen until the flute stops
and the light is old again
— W.S. Merwin, from The Shadow of Sirius, 2009, published by Copper Canyon Press
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Photo of W.S. Merwin in the palm forest by Conservancy board member Sarah Cavanaugh.
