MIDNIGHT IN EARLY SPRING
At one moment a few old leaves come in
frightened
and lie down together and stop moving
the nights now go in threes
as in a time of danger
the flies
sleep like sentries on the darkened panes
some alien blessing
is on its way to us
some prayer ignored for centuries
is about to be granted to the prayerless
in this place
who were you
cold voice born in captivity
rising
last martyr of hope
last word of a language
last son
other half of grief
who were you
so that we may know why
when the streams
wake tomorrow and we are free
— W.S. Merwin, from The Carrier of Ladders (1970), winner of the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and nominated for the National Book Award for Poetry.
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“East Maui Rainforest Hike” photo by Kim Mills used under Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 2.0 Generic License (CC BY-NC 2.0). The original photo can be found on Flickr.
Ann Darling says
This poem brought tears, tears of grief, then Joy. My son, Benjamin, who lives with schizophrenia needs healing of the body now and those around him need to empathize. A beautiful prayer.