W.S. Merwin has been publishing poetry since 1952. Tuesday, I picked up his 2009 Pulitzer Prize book of poems called The Shadow of Sirius, read the poem on the back cover, and wondered how I'd ever lived without his words.
Just This
When I think of the patience I have had
back in the dark before I remember
or knew it was night until the light came
all at once at the speed it was born to
with all the time in the world to fly through
not concerned about ever arriving
and then the gathering of the first stars
unhurried in their flowering spaces
and far into the story the planets
cooling slowly and the ages of rain
then the seas starting to bear memory
the gaze of the first cell at its waking
how did this haste begin this little time
at any time this reading by lightning
scarcely a word this nothing this heaven
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