“he suggested I pray to the Muse get down on my knees and pray right there in the corner and he said he meant it literally” — W.S. Merwin Copy Share Image
“…Preserve my eyes, which are irreplaceable. Preserve my heart, veins, bones, Against the slow death building in them like hornets until the place is… — W.S. Merwin Copy Share
“all these years I have looked through your limbs to the river below and the roofs and the night and you were the way… — W.S. Merwin Copy Share
“The thing that makes poetry different from all other arts [is that] you're using language, which is what you use for everything else--telling lies… — W.S. Merwin Copy Share
“A BIRTHDAY Something continues and I don't know what to call it though the language is full of suggestions in the way of language… — W.S. Merwin Copy Share
“October" I remember how I would say, “I will gather These pieces together, Any minute now I will make A knife out of a… — W.S. Merwin Copy Share
“...The silence of a place where there were once horses is a mountain and I have seen by lightning that ever mountain once fell… — W.S. Merwin Copy Share
“In my youth I believed in somewhere else I put my faith in travel now I am becoming my own tree” — W.S. Merwin Copy Share
“How beautiful you must be to have been able to lead me this far with only the sound of your going away” — W.S. Merwin Copy Share
“I turned to the room and in the light from the street beheld one beautiful bare breast of a friend's friend gently rising and… — W.S. Merwin Copy Share
“…Let all lights but yours be nothing to me. Let the memory of tongues not unnerve me so that I stumble or quake. But… — W.S. Merwin Copy Share
“where will the meanings be when the words are forgotten will I see again where you are” — W.S. Merwin Copy Share
“...Yes, now the roads themselves are shattered As though they had fallen from a height, and the sky Is cracked like varnish. Hard to… — W.S. Merwin Copy Share
“Place" On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree what for not the fruit the tree that bears… — W.S. Merwin Copy Share
