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You are here: Home / Poems / “River” by W.S. Merwin

“River” by W.S. Merwin

November 7, 2016 By Sara Tekula

On the Yangtze River near Ychang by Bernd Thaller
Photo “On the Yangtze River near Ychang” by Bernd Thaller

River

Li Po the little boat is gone
that carried you ten thousand li
downstream past the gibbons calling
all the way from both banks and they
too are gone and the forests they
were calling from and you are gone
and every sound you heard is gone
now there is only the river
that was always on its own way

— W.S. Merwin, from his newest book Garden Time (Copper Canyon Press, 2016).  Copyright © 2016 by W. S. Merwin.  Used by permission of the publishers, www.coppercanyonpress.org.


To browse through our archive of previously posted Poems of the Week, click here.

To support the preservation of W.S. Merwin’s legacy and our efforts to preserve his home and palm forest for future generations, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to The Merwin Conservancy.  

Photo by Bernd Thaller is used under Creative Commons Attribution license. The original image can be found here.

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