REMEMBERING SUMMER
Being too warm the old lady said to me
is better than being too cold I think now
in between is the best because you never
give it a thought but it goes by too fast
I remember the winter how cold it got
I could never get warm wherever I was
but I don’t remember the summer heat like that
only the long days the breathing of the trees
the evenings with the hens still talking in the lane
and the light getting longer in the valley
the sound of a bell from down there somewhere
I can sit here now still listening to it
— W.S. Merwin, from his latest book Garden Time (Copper Canyon Press, 2016). Copyright © 2016 by W. S. Merwin. Used by permission of the publishers, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
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Featured photo was taken by Carolyn Monastra on the NYC Subway. “Remembering Summer” was selected as part of the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Poetry in Motion programming for 2018, and is accompanied by a mosaic work by Mickalene Thomas, a Brooklyn,NY-based contemporary artist.
A wonderful idea of the Poerty in motion. Great to read in a full train. Give a good feeling of reading something beautiful . Thank you