BEFORE A DEPARTURE IN SPRING
Once more it is April with the first light sifting
through the young leaves heavy with dew making the colors
remember who they are the new pink of the cinnamon tree
the gilded lichens of the bamboo the shadowed bronze
of the kamani and the blue day opening
as the sunlight descends through it all like the return
of a spirit touching without touch and unable
to believe it is here and here again and awake
reaching out in silence into the cool breath
of the garden just risen from darkness and days of rain
it is only a moment the birds fly through it calling
to each other and are gone with their few notes and the flash
of their flight that had vanished before we ever knew it
we watch without touching any of it and we
can tell ourselves only that this is April this is the morning
this never happened before and we both remember it
—W.S. Merwin, from The River Sound, (A.A. Knopf, 1999)
Copyright © 1999 by W. S. Merwin.
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Featured photo by Philippe Clairo used under Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. The original image can be found here.
Michael Bever says
I remember.
m
Ed Dalton says
We are without touching all of it.
April and soon May, their soils teeming with microbial life.
We crawl on it, feel the days’ warming rays,
Stand and wonder for all the broken stars.
Thanks. I’m enjoying The Lice and The Moving Target now.