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The Moon Before Morning
"Merwin has attained a transcendent and transformative elevation of beaming perception, exquisite balance, and clarifying beauty."—Booklist, starred review
"In his personal anonymity, his strict individuated manner, his defense of the earth, and his heartache at time's passing, Merwin has become instantly recognizable on the page."—Helen Vendler, The New York Review of Books
"W.S. Merwin's legacy is unquestionably secure."—Poetry
Two-time Pulitzer winner W.S. Merwin is one of the best-selling poets in America. In his new book, The Moon before Morning, Merwin examines everything from minute flowers to oceanic destruction, and weaves our complex relationship with the natural world with his own youth, memory, and intense engagement with the passing of days. With considered reverence, subtle might, and generous poetic imagination, Merwin presents a masterful collection.
From "Antique Sound":
There was an age when you played the records
with ordinary steel needles which grew blunt
and damaged the grooves or with more expensive
stylus tips said to be tungsten or diamond
which wore down the records and the music receded
but a friend and I had it on persuasive authority
that the best thing was a dry thorn of the right kind
and I knew where to find one of those…
W.S. Merwin served as Poet Laureate of the United States and has received every major literary accolade, including two Pulitzer prizes, most recently for The Shadow of Sirius, and the National Book Award for Migration: New and Selected Poems.
"In his personal anonymity, his strict individuated manner, his defense of the earth, and his heartache at time's passing, Merwin has become instantly recognizable on the page."—Helen Vendler, The New York Review of Books
"W.S. Merwin's legacy is unquestionably secure."—Poetry
Two-time Pulitzer winner W.S. Merwin is one of the best-selling poets in America. In his new book, The Moon before Morning, Merwin examines everything from minute flowers to oceanic destruction, and weaves our complex relationship with the natural world with his own youth, memory, and intense engagement with the passing of days. With considered reverence, subtle might, and generous poetic imagination, Merwin presents a masterful collection.
From "Antique Sound":
There was an age when you played the records
with ordinary steel needles which grew blunt
and damaged the grooves or with more expensive
stylus tips said to be tungsten or diamond
which wore down the records and the music receded
but a friend and I had it on persuasive authority
that the best thing was a dry thorn of the right kind
and I knew where to find one of those…
W.S. Merwin served as Poet Laureate of the United States and has received every major literary accolade, including two Pulitzer prizes, most recently for The Shadow of Sirius, and the National Book Award for Migration: New and Selected Poems.
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
17 people are currently reading
791 people want to read
About the author
W.S. Merwin
192 books347 followersWilliam Stanley Merwin was an American poet, credited with over fifty books of poetry, translation and prose.
William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, his writing influence derived from an interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he wrote prolifically and was dedicated to the restoration of the island's rainforests.
Merwin received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971 and 2009; the National Book Award for Poetry in 2005, and the Tanning Prize—one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets—as well as the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. In 2010, the Library of Congress named him the 17th United States Poet Laureate.
William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, his writing influence derived from an interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he wrote prolifically and was dedicated to the restoration of the island's rainforests.
Merwin received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971 and 2009; the National Book Award for Poetry in 2005, and the Tanning Prize—one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets—as well as the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. In 2010, the Library of Congress named him the 17th United States Poet Laureate.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
October 15, 2025
Former poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet W.S. Merwin wrote a collection full of grace and beauty. His poems have themes about time, memory, childhood, growing older, sounds, and the natural world around the home and nature preserve he designed in Hawaii. His work is without punctuation, but it moves elegantly from line to line. A Buddhist influence gives his poetry an ethereal quality and the sense that everything is connected. Lovely!
Theft of Morning
Early morning in cloud light
to the sound of the last
of the rain at daybreak dripping
from the tips of the fronds
into the summer day
I watch palm flowers open
pink coral in midair
among pleated cloud-green fans
as I sit for a while after breakfast
reading a few pages
with a shadowing sense
that I am stealing the moment
from something else
that I ought to be doing
so the pleasure of stealing is part of it
Theft of Morning
Early morning in cloud light
to the sound of the last
of the rain at daybreak dripping
from the tips of the fronds
into the summer day
I watch palm flowers open
pink coral in midair
among pleated cloud-green fans
as I sit for a while after breakfast
reading a few pages
with a shadowing sense
that I am stealing the moment
from something else
that I ought to be doing
so the pleasure of stealing is part of it
August 3, 2016
These are the poems of an old man (Merwin is 86) – an old man gifted with poetry, perception, languages, love of nature, a long life, love. I couldn't hurry through these poems; as best as I could, I let them take their own shape as I read them. With their signature lack of punctuation, they seem to require a spoken voice. Or maybe it's me who requires that, who needs to travel down the page speaking and listening at the same time.
What I remember I cannot tell
though it is there in all that I say
There is a long spell of our lives where it seems as if we are making things (including memories) – and then somewhere in middle age (at least for me) a time in which it's the memories that matter, or the pressure behind, within, the memories. Merwin is out at the far reaches of this recollection.
AFTER THE VOICES
Youth is gone from the place where I was young
even the language that I heard here once
its cadences that went on echoing
a youth forgotten and the great singing
of the beginning have fallen silent
with the voices that were the spirit of them
and their absences were no more noticed
than were those of the unreturning birds
each spring until there were no words at all
for what was gone but it was always so
I have no way of telling what I miss
I am the only one who misses it
Merwin's poems do not dramatize themselves, they require a stillness to achieve their meaning. They are haunted by palpable absence. There is elegy, even bitterness, but mostly it seems a love for poems themselves, the way they save lived experience – animals, people, the disappearing beauty of the world – from being altogether lost. (Merwin's book of translations is full of such gems. I'm amazed every time I open it at what I never guessed existed: these poems, these moments.)
In her typically excellent review of Merwin's previous book of poems, Helen Vendler quotes the poem "Worn Words" in which Merwin states his preference for the "late poems" of poets:
The late poems are the ones
I turn to first now
following a hope that keeps
beckoning me
waiting somewhere in the lines
almost in plain sight
it is the late poems
that are made of words
that have come the whole way
they have been there
I'd forgotten that poem until tonight when I finished The Moon Before Morning. I don't share the preference (yet) but I can't help being moved by the late poems of Merwin himself. I imagine reading this book again over the years with a deeper appreciation.
What I remember I cannot tell
though it is there in all that I say
There is a long spell of our lives where it seems as if we are making things (including memories) – and then somewhere in middle age (at least for me) a time in which it's the memories that matter, or the pressure behind, within, the memories. Merwin is out at the far reaches of this recollection.
AFTER THE VOICES
Youth is gone from the place where I was young
even the language that I heard here once
its cadences that went on echoing
a youth forgotten and the great singing
of the beginning have fallen silent
with the voices that were the spirit of them
and their absences were no more noticed
than were those of the unreturning birds
each spring until there were no words at all
for what was gone but it was always so
I have no way of telling what I miss
I am the only one who misses it
Merwin's poems do not dramatize themselves, they require a stillness to achieve their meaning. They are haunted by palpable absence. There is elegy, even bitterness, but mostly it seems a love for poems themselves, the way they save lived experience – animals, people, the disappearing beauty of the world – from being altogether lost. (Merwin's book of translations is full of such gems. I'm amazed every time I open it at what I never guessed existed: these poems, these moments.)
In her typically excellent review of Merwin's previous book of poems, Helen Vendler quotes the poem "Worn Words" in which Merwin states his preference for the "late poems" of poets:
The late poems are the ones
I turn to first now
following a hope that keeps
beckoning me
waiting somewhere in the lines
almost in plain sight
it is the late poems
that are made of words
that have come the whole way
they have been there
I'd forgotten that poem until tonight when I finished The Moon Before Morning. I don't share the preference (yet) but I can't help being moved by the late poems of Merwin himself. I imagine reading this book again over the years with a deeper appreciation.
March 28, 2025
The kind of poems that keep you up at night and help you look forward to tomorrow.
From "From the Gray Legends"
In the gray before day
wherever Minerva's gray eyes turned
she saw Arachne's weaving
From "Elegy For a Walnut Tree"
You and the seasons spoke the same language
and all these years I have looked through your limbs
to the river below and the roofs and the night
and you were the way I saw the world
Ancient World
Orange sunset
in the deep shell of summer
a long silence reaching
across the dry pastures
in the distance a dog barks
at the sound of a door closing
and at once I am older
From "From the Gray Legends"
In the gray before day
wherever Minerva's gray eyes turned
she saw Arachne's weaving
From "Elegy For a Walnut Tree"
You and the seasons spoke the same language
and all these years I have looked through your limbs
to the river below and the roofs and the night
and you were the way I saw the world
Ancient World
Orange sunset
in the deep shell of summer
a long silence reaching
across the dry pastures
in the distance a dog barks
at the sound of a door closing
and at once I am older
January 2, 2022
I'll just give a sample.
In the cities the birds are forgotten
among other things but then one could say
that the cities are made of absences
of what disappeared so they could be there
the flycatchers after the Algonquins
the slaves and the buildings they had made
the woods and the wood thrushes taking their
songs with them when they went and the leaves
taking the tongues they spoke until one could say
that in the continuous sound of the city
one white note plays on to prevent memory
even of the city itself as it was
yesterday in that very place or just
before the light changed at the street corner
it may be that the sound of a city
is the current music of vanishing
naturally forgetting its own song
In the cities the birds are forgotten
among other things but then one could say
that the cities are made of absences
of what disappeared so they could be there
the flycatchers after the Algonquins
the slaves and the buildings they had made
the woods and the wood thrushes taking their
songs with them when they went and the leaves
taking the tongues they spoke until one could say
that in the continuous sound of the city
one white note plays on to prevent memory
even of the city itself as it was
yesterday in that very place or just
before the light changed at the street corner
it may be that the sound of a city
is the current music of vanishing
naturally forgetting its own song
September 7, 2014
Almost all the poems herein are meditations or verbal floatations upon Time and the loss of Time, Memory and the loss of Memory, Sounds and the loss of Sounds. Many of these poems consider specific animals, birds, trees, plants, or clouds; a few consider particular persons from his own life. And then, unexpectedly -- an odd persona poem in the voice of Lear's wife, and also an elegy for Adrienne Rich. I read through this book in one sitting, today, because my old cat is dying: I needed to listen to a voice like Merwin's -- at a remove, ethereal, suspended, no-knowing.
March 30, 2025
It is March 2025 and I have returned to the city I once lived in. All I've done this week is walk the streets I once knew so intimately, share coffee with friends I love deeply, and savour the extraordinary gift of feeling alive in every moment. The memories come back to me in waves, nudging me: Do you remember? Will you remember this?
W.S. Merwin's collection of poems has met me as I navigate different emotions that arise when you return to a place you once called home. (Isn't it mysterious how words make their way to you right when you need them? Not before, not after. Such impeccable timing. It makes me believe in magic)
The land of memory is a land of questions. What if I had stayed? What if I had made different choices? How different would I have been, would my life have been?
"I have no way of telling what I miss
I am only the one who misses it”
Here, there will always be what-ifs and lives that I wish I had chosen. Poetry like W.S. Merwin's is a humbling reminder that life is this: a memory. It is rich and majestic because of, not despite, the sorrows and heartbreaks and questions and wonders and deep entanglements with place, people, and past lives.
W.S. Merwin's poetry that makes space to hold and honour all that was and all that is, to see clearly and feel deeply and love gently. It is a poetry of memory and time, a poetry of remembering and forgetting, of loss and love.
“It will not be enough
to recall stills from along the way
to glimpse from its hill
the long-gone night pasture
the light on the river
but not the river
the sunbeam on the scuffed stairs
in the soundless house
but not where it was going
the eyes of a dog
watching from beside me
a face in shadow
silent as an old photograph
our meeting our first night
and waking at home together
again
I was there
these same hands and these eyes as they were
when they wondered where it was going
where it had gone
it will not be enough
it will be enough”
W.S. Merwin's collection of poems has met me as I navigate different emotions that arise when you return to a place you once called home. (Isn't it mysterious how words make their way to you right when you need them? Not before, not after. Such impeccable timing. It makes me believe in magic)
The land of memory is a land of questions. What if I had stayed? What if I had made different choices? How different would I have been, would my life have been?
"I have no way of telling what I miss
I am only the one who misses it”
Here, there will always be what-ifs and lives that I wish I had chosen. Poetry like W.S. Merwin's is a humbling reminder that life is this: a memory. It is rich and majestic because of, not despite, the sorrows and heartbreaks and questions and wonders and deep entanglements with place, people, and past lives.
W.S. Merwin's poetry that makes space to hold and honour all that was and all that is, to see clearly and feel deeply and love gently. It is a poetry of memory and time, a poetry of remembering and forgetting, of loss and love.
“It will not be enough
to recall stills from along the way
to glimpse from its hill
the long-gone night pasture
the light on the river
but not the river
the sunbeam on the scuffed stairs
in the soundless house
but not where it was going
the eyes of a dog
watching from beside me
a face in shadow
silent as an old photograph
our meeting our first night
and waking at home together
again
I was there
these same hands and these eyes as they were
when they wondered where it was going
where it had gone
it will not be enough
it will be enough”
July 29, 2018
It had been a little while since I read a book of poetry through from start to finish, and at first, I thought that perhaps I wasn't going to like this one. Or perhaps that I had lost the knack for appreciating poetry. As I read the first section of this collection, I found the work of W.S. Merwin to be a bit too intentionally abstract. His line breaks seemed chosen in such a way as to create unnecessary and unhelpful ambiguity. And too many of his poems seemed absorbed with the observation of minute natural phenomenon held in isolation, without connection to a larger world. This guy is a Pulitzer Prize winner, I told myself. What's wrong with me that I don't like his stuff?
As I moved to the second and third sections of the book, I made a choice to read more poems at one sitting. And as I did so, I settled into Merwin's language and cadence more thoroughly. I also found more variety in the poems. Perhaps too I enjoyed these pieces more thoroughly because they were more grounded in particular places and times - Merwin explores the memories of travels he has taken or people he has known - and the level of abstraction did not seem as high.
By the final section or two of the book, I was sold. Not every poem connected with me, but there was enough material here that resonated to make this collection memorable and the whole is almost certainly greater than the sum of its parts. The poem "Convenience" itself is probably worth the price of the book. But reading several poems in succession leads to mental connections and overlapping images that are stronger than one gets from reading a single entry or even two.
Merwin's poems deal with aging, memory, life, death and legacy. These are the preoccupations of a craftsman completing his ninth decade of life, and they carry the weight of an authority that they would not be able to match if they came from a younger man. I imagine this volume of poems as the literary equivalent of sitting on the porch and listening to your grandfather share about the wisdom and the beauty of a life well lived.
As I moved to the second and third sections of the book, I made a choice to read more poems at one sitting. And as I did so, I settled into Merwin's language and cadence more thoroughly. I also found more variety in the poems. Perhaps too I enjoyed these pieces more thoroughly because they were more grounded in particular places and times - Merwin explores the memories of travels he has taken or people he has known - and the level of abstraction did not seem as high.
By the final section or two of the book, I was sold. Not every poem connected with me, but there was enough material here that resonated to make this collection memorable and the whole is almost certainly greater than the sum of its parts. The poem "Convenience" itself is probably worth the price of the book. But reading several poems in succession leads to mental connections and overlapping images that are stronger than one gets from reading a single entry or even two.
Merwin's poems deal with aging, memory, life, death and legacy. These are the preoccupations of a craftsman completing his ninth decade of life, and they carry the weight of an authority that they would not be able to match if they came from a younger man. I imagine this volume of poems as the literary equivalent of sitting on the porch and listening to your grandfather share about the wisdom and the beauty of a life well lived.
November 6, 2017
Last two stanzas from "Wild Oats":
I have to keep telling myself
why I am going away again
I do not seem to listen
In my youth I believed in somewhere else
I put faith in travel
now I am becoming my own tree
(Just gorgeous)
I have been reading and rereading this book for a year. I finally finished it today. I thank Merwin for creating poems that transport me to the infinite in the now and quotidian. I love Merwin for how often his poetry relies upon the love of the moon, a bird, a tree, or a dog. Reflections I understand and inhabit too.
I have to keep telling myself
why I am going away again
I do not seem to listen
In my youth I believed in somewhere else
I put faith in travel
now I am becoming my own tree
(Just gorgeous)
I have been reading and rereading this book for a year. I finally finished it today. I thank Merwin for creating poems that transport me to the infinite in the now and quotidian. I love Merwin for how often his poetry relies upon the love of the moon, a bird, a tree, or a dog. Reflections I understand and inhabit too.
May 25, 2019
Favorites, Widnoon, Mr Daley, Lear's Wife, The Chain to Her Leg (Topsy)
And Turning:
Going too fast for myself I missed
more than I think I can remember
almost everything it seems sometimes
and yet there are chances that come back
that I did not notice when they stood
where I could have reached out and touched them
this morning the black Belgian shepherd dog
still young looking up and saying
Are you ready this time
And Turning:
Going too fast for myself I missed
more than I think I can remember
almost everything it seems sometimes
and yet there are chances that come back
that I did not notice when they stood
where I could have reached out and touched them
this morning the black Belgian shepherd dog
still young looking up and saying
Are you ready this time
March 19, 2019
O! O! O! I will worry the pages of this one over years. I think it is what he's best known for, but the way the verses slow down, speed up and hold time still is amazing. I want to live in these poems. And I plan to read everything else he's ever written.
December 6, 2024
A fine, thoughtful collection of poetry that resonates with memory and deep awareness of the natural world: ‘and I was young and I heard sheep bells far off/a breeze in the almonds a voice/with its echo and a girl singing somewhere/and I thought it might be enough’
April 7, 2014
I need to go read somebody like Bloom on Merwin, as I only tumble into his poems now and then. One should approach poems like the Zen master approaches a koan--patiently, allowing the tribbles of the day to fall away, and then some of the assorted personalities that one need to keep handy throughout the day, and then all the little judgements one has about poetry, and this particular poet, and finally that incipient puzzle solving control freak, until the familiar in you can become familiar with the familiar in him/her and the epiphany occurs. But honestly, who has time for epiphanies that don't clobber you over the head, instantly, like Paul off his Tarsusian horse.
Like, who knows beforehand what poem is worth spending that kind of time with? If I had a clone, okay, several clones, I would assign one to be a poem reader for me, and whenever my clone would rigidify and shout "aha" I say, okay, book that one for me for later.
Meanwhile, I "liked" Homecoming, Dew Light, The Color They Come To, The New Song, The Eternal Return, Alba, The Gloaming, Lear's Wife, The Heron Time.
Like, who knows beforehand what poem is worth spending that kind of time with? If I had a clone, okay, several clones, I would assign one to be a poem reader for me, and whenever my clone would rigidify and shout "aha" I say, okay, book that one for me for later.
Meanwhile, I "liked" Homecoming, Dew Light, The Color They Come To, The New Song, The Eternal Return, Alba, The Gloaming, Lear's Wife, The Heron Time.
July 29, 2014
Merwin's newest collection explores his familiar themes. Memory, the silence and voice of the natural world, and the success and failure of language to build and destroy are all here. I agree with another reviewer who said she felt that this could have been pared down a bit, that there might be too much of the same thing here. I agree completely.
Obviously, while it contributes to the meditative quality of Merwin's poetry, the repetition, in this case, grew a little tiresome to me. The poems of Section 3 were a breath of fresh air, as Merwin shifts from landscapes, rivers and trees, to poems about real and interesting people always reaching toward the strings of Merwin's memory.
Obviously, while it contributes to the meditative quality of Merwin's poetry, the repetition, in this case, grew a little tiresome to me. The poems of Section 3 were a breath of fresh air, as Merwin shifts from landscapes, rivers and trees, to poems about real and interesting people always reaching toward the strings of Merwin's memory.
November 7, 2017
The poet’s memory palace is haunted by the ghosts of birds and friends and trees and words and youth. The poems set sail as ancient boats on the river of forgetfulness and waterfall into a timepiece long ago in a foreign land far away and as good as gone. Waking to presence and absence. Waking to silence and language.
“To the Wonder of the Imperfect”: “Nothing I do is finished / so I keep returning to it / lured by the notion that I long / to see the whole of it at last / completed and estranged from me... I am made of incompleteness / the words are not there in words” (92)
“To the Wonder of the Imperfect”: “Nothing I do is finished / so I keep returning to it / lured by the notion that I long / to see the whole of it at last / completed and estranged from me... I am made of incompleteness / the words are not there in words” (92)
December 19, 2014
So many poems about age and memory and growing old and regret.
August 17, 2014
These poems were mainly about nature and some about Hawaii's nature, which had more meaning for me. Graceful and enjoyable poetry.
October 16, 2014
Arachne had her own beauty
Seen or unseen
And she was older
She was already who she was
from the poem From The Gray Legends
Seen or unseen
And she was older
She was already who she was
from the poem From The Gray Legends
November 29, 2025
3.5 stars, lots of great poems in this :)
“How beautiful you must be to have been able to lead me this far with only the sound of your going away”
“How beautiful you must be to have been able to lead me this far with only the sound of your going away”
May 8, 2019
I have mixed emotions about the poetry of W.S. Merwin. He is, no doubt, supremely talented, but it was difficult for me to focus on the beauty in the language of the poems. I think what made it so hard was the lack of any punctuation. Without those, I don't know how to read the poems- where to take a breath, where to insert a short pause and it loses rhythm, rhyme, fluidity. So, I found my mind wandering as I read. Of course, then I would stumble across a poem like "Ancient World" or a line like "...and silence fell out of the sky like rain" in "Weinrich's Hand" and I would be jolted back to attention and filled with awe.
June 26, 2021
I love Merwin and I loved several of the poems in this book. The book as a whole was not one I connected with; it just didn't hook me in as Merwin's poetry usually does. That said, there are some gems in here. I especially loved: The New Song; Elegy for A Walnut Tree; Above the Purple Gorge; Wild Oats; and The Wonder of the Imperfect. Here are a few favorite lines from "Wild Oats," my favorite in the whole collection:
"I needed my mistakes / in their own order / to get me here // Here is the full moon / bringing us / silence // I call that singing bird my friend / though I know nothing else about him / and he does not know I exist"
"I needed my mistakes / in their own order / to get me here // Here is the full moon / bringing us / silence // I call that singing bird my friend / though I know nothing else about him / and he does not know I exist"
July 22, 2020
In the latter years of my adolescence, I took shelter in Merwin's prolific world of verse — the confirmation that some questions might be answered in later mornings, & that others were justified in their weight precisely because the solutions were undefined.
Now more than a year since Merwin passed, it's solemn to return to his garden, to walk among the palms with a memory that is completely aware it will be forgotten. The visions are so vivid it seems he must still be in another valley, weaving a bit more time between the sunrises.
*The Moon Before Morning* is a meditation on memory & memorial, on the accumulation and interminable passing of finite time. Merwin asks you to walk alongside him as he returns to childhood neighborhoods, the New York of past generations, and countless evening winds that served as substrate for the moments of his life. Each poem carries both wonder & pragmatism, at once taken with the full tapestry of the natural world & calmly recognizing the physical realities of being human.
It would be easy to read Merwin's reflection as a lament, but any hint at remorse is dwarfed by the joy Merwin takes in cataloging temporal lapses, lacunae that stretch experience beyond the limits of what it appears we are given. Rather than fearing age, Merwin shows the splendor to be found in expanding our collection of private shelters, to take comfort rather than shock in their plasticity.
Now more than a year since Merwin passed, it's solemn to return to his garden, to walk among the palms with a memory that is completely aware it will be forgotten. The visions are so vivid it seems he must still be in another valley, weaving a bit more time between the sunrises.
*The Moon Before Morning* is a meditation on memory & memorial, on the accumulation and interminable passing of finite time. Merwin asks you to walk alongside him as he returns to childhood neighborhoods, the New York of past generations, and countless evening winds that served as substrate for the moments of his life. Each poem carries both wonder & pragmatism, at once taken with the full tapestry of the natural world & calmly recognizing the physical realities of being human.
It would be easy to read Merwin's reflection as a lament, but any hint at remorse is dwarfed by the joy Merwin takes in cataloging temporal lapses, lacunae that stretch experience beyond the limits of what it appears we are given. Rather than fearing age, Merwin shows the splendor to be found in expanding our collection of private shelters, to take comfort rather than shock in their plasticity.
August 23, 2017
I recently read a single line of one of Merwin's poems which cut me to the quick, so I checked this book out from the library. It was the only volume of exclusively his poems there, and I did not realize that it was entirely nature poems until I started reading. Um, so, nature poems. I love flora as much as the next person, but, um, well, flora. I feel like nature poems are Intro to Poetry 101. There's not really much to say, which is probably why I wasn't that enthused by these poems.
December 6, 2025
There are few poets I revere as much as Mr. Merwin. And this is one of his best collections. He says stuff like this:
“Thank you my lifelong afternoon
late in this season of no age
thank you for my windows above the rivers
thank you for the true love you brought me to
when it was time at last and for
words that come out of silence and take me by surprise
and have carried me through the clear day
without once turning to look at me.”
“Thank you my lifelong afternoon
late in this season of no age
thank you for my windows above the rivers
thank you for the true love you brought me to
when it was time at last and for
words that come out of silence and take me by surprise
and have carried me through the clear day
without once turning to look at me.”
January 23, 2020
Following the style of stream of consciousness (no use of punctuation), this collection of poems is best read slow/read aloud so the words truly sink in. “Convenience” was the most memorable for me. The author’s talent shines especially when using personification and creating haunting/nostalgic atmospheres.
September 5, 2020
i carried this book with me for a solid month, reading hear and there, letting the book chose the poem for me. he does magical things, takes the simplest image and expands it into something luxurious. i would read him over and over again.
May 26, 2022
Theft of Morning, The Color They Come To, The Wonder of The Imperfect, and Turning have to be my favs! As usual, Merwin’s poetry is wonderful, though the lack of punctuation did make it a bit hard to read sometimes ><.
January 27, 2018
One of my favorites from Merwin.
March 12, 2019
Quiet, pleasant poems about trees and time and memory.
May 4, 2019
Lovely, short, and "green" feel with lots of outdoor, garden, and nature. My favorite is "Beginnings."
May 30, 2019
A lovely book of poems.
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