#the lice

[ronthedunedain]

W.S. Merwin, When the War is Over. The Lice, 1967, Atheneum.

[bostonpoetryslam]

You grieve Not that heaven does not exist but That it exists without us

W.S. Merwin, “The Widow,” from The Lice

[petitefleuriste]

[derangedrhythms]

W.S. Merwin, The Lice; from ‘The Plaster’

[infiniterichesinalittleroom]

It Is March

It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices

When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With your dirty knuckles and the wingless Bird on your shoulder What can you write

The bitterness is still rising in the old mines The fist is coming out of the egg The thermometers out of the mouths of the corpses

At a certain height The tails of the kites for a moment are Covered with footsteps

Whatever I have to do has not yet begun

• W.S. Merwin

[bostonpoetryslam]

It is too simple to turn to the sound Of frost stirring among its Stars like an animal asleep In the winter night And say I was born far from home If there is a place where this is the language may it be my country

W.S. Merwin, “The Cold Before the Moonrise,” from The Lice

[bostonpoetryslam]

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

W.S. Merwin, “The River of Bees,” from The Lice

[bostonpoetryslam]

Deem yourself inevitable and take credit for it If you find you no longer believe enlarge the temple

W.S. Merwin, “A Scale in May,” from The Lice