Hello Friends,
Do you have a hardest day? I don't know if there will ever come a time when April 13 isn't the hardest day of the year for me. It is a day when I am forced to face myself. I have known the greatest joys of my life on April 13ths — which I live in fear of never finding again — and April 13 has also been the worst day of my life. All these years later, there is still so much about this day I have not found the words or the courage to write about — and that is the topic of today's poem: the unwritten.
Notice that W.S. Merwin uses no punctuation. He's written entire books with no punctuation, and yet his meaning is still perfectly clear. I find that kind of craft remarkable — like the great Buddhist temples erected without using a single nail.
Enjoy.
Ellen
Inside this pencil
crouch words that have never been written
never been spoken
never been taught
they're hiding
they're awake in there
dark in the dark
hearing us
but they won't come out
not for love not for time not for fire
even when the dark has worn away
they'll still be there
hiding in the air
multitudes in days to come may walk through them
breathe them
be none the wiser
what script can it be
that they won't unroll
in what language
would I recognize it
would I be able to follow it
to make out the real names
of everything
maybe there aren't
many
it could be that there's only one word
and it's all we need
it's here in this pencil
every pencil in the world
is like this
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Poems by W.S. Merwin were also featured for Poem-a-Day April 4, 2016, Poem-a-Day April 16, 2010; Poem-a-Day April 9, 2009; Poem-a-Day April 17, 2008; and Poem-a-Day April 7, 2007.