For the Anniversary of My Death by W.S. Merwin
For the Anniversary of My Death
W. S. MerwinEvery year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless starThen I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what
MARGINALIA
Death has touched this house once more. My grandfather’s cousin, sick in the same way my lolo was sick, tried to kill himself again a few days ago. He deliberately pushed himself down a flight of stairs, breaking his bones, our hearts. We just got the phone call. He passed away in his sleep at the hospital, free from this world finally.
Oh, but to have such days repeated. This man, who was so much like my lolo. I’m scared of what this means for all of us. I’m scared to see my father cry again. Two years after having someone you know die: I’m scared of going through that again.
KEEP READING
SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in Naked Poetry: Recent American Poetry in Open Forms by W. S. Merwin, published by The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. , 1969. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)
ABOUT W. S. MERWIN
William Stanley (W.S.) Merwin was born in New York City in 1927 and raised in New Jersey and Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of a Presbyterian minister. His numerous collections of poetry, his translations, and his books of prose have won praise over seven decades. He won nearly every award available to an American poet, and he was named U.S. poet laureate twice. His first collection of poetry, A Mask for Janus (1952), was chosen for the Yale Younger Poets Prize. Merwin is also an… (more)
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