THE HYDRA
No the dead have no brothers
The Hydra calls me but I am used to it
It calls me Everybody
But I know my name and do not answer
And you the dead
You know your names as I do not
But at moments you have just finished speaking
The snow stirs in its wrappings
Every season comes from a new place
Like your voice with its resemblances
A long time ago the lightning was practicing
Something I thought was easy
I was young and the Dead were in other
Ages
As the grass had its own language
Now I forget where the difference falls
One thing about the living sometimes a piece of us
Can stop dying for a moment
But you the dead
Once you go into those names you go on you never
Hesitate
You go one
– W.S. Merwin, from his book The Lice (1967), republished by Copper Canyon Press in 2017
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