Garden Time - Softcover

Merwin, W S

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1556595948 ISBN 13: 9781556595943

Publisher: Copper Canyon Press,U.S., 2020

Synopsis

Composed as he lost his eyesight, W.S. Merwin's final and exquisite book brims with longing, loss, and unanswerable questions. In Garden Time, Merwin's luminous, ethereal voice gently interrogates mortality; at the very end of his life, he sings lovingly to a tireless world--although not without trepidation. When he could no longer see well enough to write, he dictated his poems to his wife, Paula. The result is a book contemplative and delicate, tender and melancholy. In this gorgeous, mindful, and life-affirming book, our greatest poet channels energy from his memories and deep connection to the world so as to remind us that "The only hope is to be the daylight."

About this title

About the Author

W.S. Merwin served as Poet Laureate of the United States and has received every major literary accolade, including two Pulitzer prizes, most recently for The Shadow of Sirius (Copper Canyon) and the National Book Award for Migration: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

THE OTHER HOUSEI come back again to the old housethat I thought I knew for most of a lifetime the house I reclaimed from abandon and ruinand that I called my home at times when I was hereand at times when I was somewhere far from here this time I have not come to reclaim anythingbut to move nothing and to touch nothing as though I were a ghost or here in a dream and I know it is a dream that has no agein this dream the same river is still herethe house is the old house and I am here in the morning in the sunlight and the same bird is singingTO WORDS IN THEIR SLEEPHave you slept the whole summer away here with the dogsdo you believe in wakingdo you dream that you are somewhere elsedo you remember what you meant to say do you remember the sounds of voicesyou once hearddo you know who you aredo you still speak the old language are you older than you can sayyou who never told the whole story only what came to mindNO TWILIGHTHow suddenly now it seems that the dayis over and on the island where Ihave lived these late happy years of my life that Paula and I have been togetherthere is no twilight when the day is donethe day's shadow is gone in the moment it was here with all that went beforegone the same way into the one nightwhere time means nothing that is visiblewhen I look up after the light has gone hearing a seed fall somewhere in the dark

Edition details

• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press,U.S.
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1556595948
• ISBN 13: 9781556595943
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 90