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You are here: Home / Conservancy News / “For the Anniversary of My Death” by W.S. Merwin

“For the Anniversary of My Death” by W.S. Merwin

March 15, 2020 By Merwin Conservancy

Photo by Tom Sewell for The New York Times

FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF MY DEATH

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

– W.S. Merwin,“For the Anniversary of My Death” from The Second Four Books of Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 1993). Copyright © 1993 by W. S. Merwin. Reprinted with the permission of The Wylie Agency, Inc.

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