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You are here: Home / Poems / “The Wonder of the Imperfect” by W.S. Merwin

“The Wonder of the Imperfect” by W.S. Merwin

February 12, 2019 By Merwin Conservancy

Larry Cameron - W.S. Merwin Rakes and Brooms
Photo by Larry Cameron

THE WONDER OF THE IMPERFECT

Nothing that I do is finished
so I keep returning to it
lured by the notion that I long
to see the whole of it at last
completed and estranged from me

but no the unfinished is what
I return to as it leads me on
I am made whole by what has just
escaped me as it always does
I am made of incompleteness
the words are not there in words

oh gossamer gossamer breath
moment daylight life untouchable
by no name with no beginning

what do we think we recognize

– W.S. Merwin, from The Moon Before Morning (2014, Copper Canyon Press). Used by permission of the publishers.

Copyright © 2014 by W. S. Merwin.

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