““The slate black sky. The middle step of the back porch. And long ago my mother's necklace, the beads rolling north and south. Broken the rose stem, water into drops, glass knob on the bedroom door. Last summer's pot of parsley and mint, white roots shooting like streamers through the cracks. Years ago the cat's tail, the bird bath, the car hood's rusted latch. Broken little finger on my right hand at birth-- I was pulled out too fast. What hasn''t been rent, divided, split? Broken the days into nights, the night sky into stars, the stars into patterns I make up as I trace them with a broken-off blade of grass. Possible, unthinkable, the cricket's tiny back as I lie on the lawn in the dark, my hart a blue cup fallen from someone's hands. ””
![“It's difficult to talk about [W.S.] Merwin's poems, as it's hard to talk about a feeling or a smell. It is what it is, but so much so that it overwhelms both sense and the senses. I aspire to something about his work, that imbues his poems, though I'm not sure I could say what that is. A purity…” quote by Dorianne Laux](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/8c1/dorianne-laux-12252_aspire_it-s-difficult-to-talk-about-w-s-merwin_654128.jpg)
