1 July

Ooh, ooh! Big news on the home front. The US has named a new Poet Laureate. W.S. Merwin will follow in the footsteps of the Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Robert Penn Warren and Conrad Aiken. The 82 year old Hawaii resident writes some tough stuff. This is no Billy Collins (who I love), whose poems are made for browsing and reading aloud to your sweetie while snuggling on the couch on a rainy afternoon. Merwin requires some real effort, but it is worth it. Anyway, Congrats to Merwin and to America for continuing a tradition of excellence in poetry.

Good People

BY W. S. MERWIN

From the kindness of my parents

I suppose it was that I held

that belief about suffering

imagining that if only

it could come to the attention

of any person with normal

feelings certainly anyone

literate who might have gone

to college they would comprehend

pain when it went on before them

and would do something about it

whenever they saw it happen

in the time of pain the present

they would try to stop the bleeding

for example with their own hands

but it escapes their attention

or there may be reasons for it

the victims under the blankets

the meat counters the maimed children

the animals the animals

staring from the end of the world

Source: Poetry (December 1999).

For A Coming Extinction

From "Lice", 1967

Grey Whale

Now that we are sinding you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing

I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day

The bewilderment will diminish like an echo
Winding along your inner mountains
Unheard by us
And find its way out
Leaving behind it the future
Dead
And ours

When you will not see again
The whale calves trying the light
Consider what you will find in the black garden
And its court
The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas
The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless
And fore-ordaining as stars
Our sacrifices
Join your work to theirs
Tell him
That it is we who are important