
MORRIS GRAVES’ BLIND BIRD
This is the only way we can understand each other now
this is the only way I can listen to you
with our feet tangled in the white yard bushes
known as the world
this is the way the holders of the blinding pins
came to be unable ever to hear
Hardy told me that he had seen an ancestor of yours
long ago when I was in the dark before I was born here
and I learned later that those with the pins
became unable to hear you when you kept singing
to yourself and your clear voice kept rising
out of the chords and great chorus of your ancestors
now as I listen to you I hear in your voice
the forgotten freedom leaping over the rocks
and flying flying again and the rocks are singing
under you out of the unending silence
where the world goes on beginning
— W.S. Merwin, from his 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 taken in the Merwin Palm Forest by Maui photographer Morgan Jones.
I know this painting. What a wonderful poem to go with it.
I know the precious painting And this is an exquisite poem addressing the high importance of the unseen spirit of man.