The kind you’re born with, the kind you choose, the kind that teach Catholic school
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W.S. Merwin was a U.S. poet laureate, an environmentalist, and an antiwar activist who wrote and translated more than fifty books of poetry and prose. He studied Zen Buddhism in Hawaii and meditated in a dojo that doubled as a garden shed. He died in March 2019 at the age of ninety-one.
These days I can see us clinging to each other / as we are swept along by the current
Guess which of your organs recognize it. Guess whether it is welcomed to their temples. Guess how it figures in their prayers. Guess how completely you become what you eat. Guess how soon.
Listen / with the night falling we are saying thank you / we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings / we are running out of the glass rooms / with our mouths full of food to look at the sky / and say thank you