ANNIVERSARY ON THE ISLAND
The long waves glide in through the afternoon
while we watch from the island
from the cool shadow under the trees where the long ridge
a fold in the skirt of the mountain
runs down to the end of the headland
day after day we wake to the island
the light rises through the drops on the leaves
and we remember like birds where we are
night after night we touch the dark island
that once we set out for
and lie still at last with the island in our arms
hearing the leaves and the breathing shore
there are no years any more
only the one mountain
and on all sides the sea that brought us
— W.S. Merwin, from his 1988 book The Rain in the Trees and later featured in his National Book Award-winning collection, MIGRATION: New & Selected Poems (2005, Copper Canyon Press). Copyright © 2005 by W. S. Merwin. Used by permission of the publisher.
Featured photo by Forest and Kim Starr used under Creative Commons License CC BY 2.0. The original photo can be found here.
Gail Burlakoff says
Lovely! And *wonderful* to hear read it!
Only the one mountain–Haleakala
Mahalo nui!
(Maui no ka oe!)