w.s. merwin


Memory

 

                                                                    Climbing through a dark shower
                                                                    I came to the edge of the mountain

                                                                    I was a child
                                                                    and everything was there

                                                                    the flight of eagles the passage of warriors
                                                                    watching the valley far below

                                                                    the wind on the cliff the cold rain blowing upward
                                                                    from the rock face

                                                                    everything around me had burned
                                                                    and I was coming back

                                                                    walking on charcoal among the low green bushes
                                                                    wet to the skin and wide awake

 


FOR POETRY