THE POEM
Coming late, as always,
I try to remember what I almost heard.
The light avoids my eye.
How many times have I heard the locks close
And the lark take the keys
And hang them in heaven.
– W. S. Merwin, “The Poem” from The Moving Target (1963), also found in The Second Four Books of Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 1993) and The Essential W.S. Merwin (Copper Canyon Press, 2017).
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