[lit-ideas] Re: Poetry x 2 = Sabbatical

  • From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2006 04:49:31 EDT


========Original  Message========     Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: Poetry x 2 = 
Sabbatical  Date: 10/13/2006 11:46:24 P.M. Central Standard Time  From: 
_eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)   To: 
_lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)   Sent on:    
>>I was never very fond of Merwin, and this  poem doesn't 
cause me to change my mind.

Merwin's early stuff, from  _The Lice_ is splendid, a sort of 
surrealist aphorism. Maybe you'd like this  one:


The River of Bees
by WS Merwin

In a dream I returned  to the river of bees
Five orange trees by the bridge and
Beside two mills  my house
Into whose courtyard a blind man followed
The goats and stood  singing
Of what was older

Soon it will be fifteen years

He was  old he will have fallen into his eyes

I took my eyes
A long way to the  calendars
Room after room asking how shall I live

One of the ends is  made of streets
One man processions carry through it
Empty bottles  their
Images of hope
It was offered to me by name

Once once and  once
In the same city I was born
Asking what shall I say

He will  have fallen into his mouth
Men think they are better than grass

I  return to his voice rising like a forkful of hay

He was old he is not  real nothing is real
Nor the noise of death drawing water

We are the  echo of the future

On the door it says what to do to survive
But we  were not born to survive
Only to  live

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