We lost several giants of the poetry world in the past few months, one of whom was the remarkable and prolific W.S. Merwin. One of the most striking features of Merwin’s work is that he has written volumes and volumes of poetry using no punctuation whatsoever — it’s hard for me to even fathom or convey to you the mastery of language it takes to achieve that.
The poem below, “Place,” appears in his 1988 collection The Rain in the Trees.
Place
On the last day of the world
I would want to plant a tree
What for
not the fruit
the tree that bears the fruit
is not the one that was planted
I want the tree that stands
in the earth for the first time
with the sun already
going down
and the water
touching its roots
in the earth full of the dead
and the clouds passing
one by one
over its leaves
■
On the last day of the world
I would want to plant a tree
What for
not the fruit
the tree that bears the fruit
is not the one that was planted
I want the tree that stands
in the earth for the first time
with the sun already
going down
and the water
touching its roots
in the earth full of the dead
and the clouds passing
one by one
over its leaves
■
W.S. Merwin was a person of both quality and quantity — publishing an astounding more than 20 books of his own poetry; translating nearly another 20 books of poetry from multiple languages into English; and publishing some plays, prose, and memoirs for a total of more than 50 books in his lifetime. Among a bizillion other awards, he won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry twice and served as Poet Laureate of the United States twice. Well-known as an anti-war and environmental activist, he was also a longtime resident of Maui and a practicing Buddhist. When he wasn’t writing one of his 50 books, Merwin managed to raise more than 2,000 trees at his Maui home, a former pineapple plantation restored as a rainforest, which is set aside as The Merwin Conservancy.
If you’re interested in reading more Merwin, he has been featured for many poem-a-days in previous years that you can visit here.
Enjoy.
Ellen