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You are here: Home / Poems / “Waves in August” by W.S. Merwin

“Waves in August” by W.S. Merwin

August 11, 2019 By Merwin Conservancy

Photo: Wayne Dollemore

WAVES IN AUGUST

There is a war in the distance
with the distance growing smaller
the field glasses lying at hand
are for keeping it far away

I thought I was getting better
about that returning childish
wish to be living somewhere else
that I knew was impossible
and now I find myself wishing
to be here to be alive here
it is impossible enough
to still be the wish of a child

in youth I hid a boat under
the bushes beside the water
knowing I would want it later
and come back and would find it there
someone else took it and left me
instead the sound of the water
with its whisper of vertigo

terror reassurance an old
old sadness it would seem we knew
enough always about parting
but we have to go on learning
as long as there is anything


—W.S. Merwin, from The River Sound (A.A. Knopf, 1999), and included in the National Book Award-winning collection Migration: New & Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2005).

Copyright © 2005 by W. S. Merwin.


To browse through our archive of previously posted poems, click here.

To support the preservation of W.S. Merwin’s legacy and our efforts to preserve his living legacy for future generations, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to The Merwin Conservancy.

Featured photo by Wayne Dollemore, used under Creative Commons license.

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Comments

  1. Augusta Vesecky says

    August 11, 2019 at 12:57 pm

    20 years old, but so very timely! Thank you.

  2. Jim Bodeen says

    August 13, 2019 at 7:11 am

    Opening here to this wave while reading Essential Merwin and looking up a word, vixen, in the dictionary, where I am, now, in the poems, again in the poems. Jim Bodeen

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