Rhythms and Rituals

Dear Friends,

After far too long without rain, a few light showers have awakened the garden. Paula’s irises, months late to their autumn bloom, opened at last along what William and Paula called the avenue, the path leading to the house. The pak lan tree near the house flowered, too, and the jasmine-like scent fills the garden. I wonder if it was the long-awaited rain that coaxed the Stanhopea orchids to bloom. Last week, we marveled when their long, spindly flowers tumbled from the hanging baskets on the front lanai, spilling the scent of vanilla and snickerdoodle cookies.

In these last months of the year, I am reminded that these sights, scents, cycles, and surprises make for the intimacy of our stewardship. These may be mere glimpses of the intimacy that W.S. Merwin cultivated over nearly a half century here, but they round out the Merwin Conservancy’s first five years of caring for the garden, and for the house, too. Inside, we attend to the rhythms of a house designed to breathe with the seasons, and we tend the spaces with the same sense of ritual that has long animated them; we burn incense in the dojo, and leave blueberries on the lanai for the descendants of William’s red cardinal friends. And even in these well-practiced rhythms and rituals, the house still offers up surprises. Just a few weeks ago, a small scrap of paper showed itself beneath William’s desk—a draft of a poem William included in Shadow of Sirius.

I imagine that such surprises will become increasingly rare here in the house as time goes by. Our stewardship practices will of course evolve—and have already, in a particularly significant way. After many years of gathering William’s papers from every corner of the house, the letters, photographs, and manuscripts we have assembled were moved to a new home at the Harry Ransom Center, an internationally renowned humanities research center at The University of Texas at Austin. William’s papers join the Ransom Center’s extensive collections, which “provide unique insight into the creative process of some of our finest writers and artists, deepening the understanding and appreciation of literature, photography, film, art, and the performing arts.” Not only will the papers be carefully preserved, they will be enlivened by the Ransom Center’s research multidisciplinary fellowships and rich programs.

Since our stewardship began, we have safeguarded the intimacy of this special space, while striving to share its story far and wide. As we look just ahead to William’s centenary in 2027 and to a range of programs and projects here in Hawaiʻi and across the continent, I am thrilled that the papers we gathered over the past five years will soon inspire many scholars and artists over many years to come. May they encounter delights all their own and open up new possibilities for our collective stewardship of language and land. 

With warm wishes,

Sonnet