POEMS
w.
S. MERWIN
White Morning
On nights toward the end of summer at some time the mist
has gathered in the oaks the box thickets the straggling
eglantines it has moved like a hand unable
to
believe
the
Gce
it touches over the velvet of wild thyme
and the vetches sinking with the weight of dew it has found
its way without sight into the hoof prints of cows
the dark nests long empty thc bark hanging alone the narrow
halls among stoncs and has held it all in a cloud
unseen the whole night as in a mind where I came
when it was turning white and I was holding a thin
wet branch wrapped in lichens becausc all I had thought
I knew had to be PJssed fj-om branch
to
branch through the empty
sky and whatever I reached then and could recognize
moved toward me out of the cloud and was still the sky
where I went on looking until I was standing on
what seemed the wide wall along the lane past the hazel grove
we went to one day to cut handles that would last
the crows were ca llin g around mc
to
white air
I could hear their dripping wings Jnd small birds with lights
breaking in their tongues the cold soaked through mc I was able
after that morning to believe songs that once
would have been opaque to me I saw a carriage go under
the oaks there in full day
to
vanish I watched animals
in the shade I SJt there with fj-iends they have all disappeared
most of the stories have to do with vanishing
Forgotten Streams
The names of unimportant streams have f:1llen
into oblivion the syll ables have becn lost
but the streams that never went by name never raised the question
whether what has been told and forgotten is in
another part of oblivion frolll what was never remembered
