04 April 2019

Poetry Thursday - Utterance by WS Merwin

The Universe sends poems (and much else) our way. I try to catch the poems and put them here, every week. Thanks to dovegreyreader for this one -


UTTERANCE

Sitting over words
very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing
not far
like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark
the echo of everything that has ever
been spoken
still spinning its one syllable
between the earth and silence


The author, W.S. Merwin, died last month, aged 91.


The day after reading and re-reading this poem, my phone was misbehaving yet again, switching me elsewhere when I was trying to zoom in for a photo. I muttered beneath my breath (= whispering), standing on a quiet street, "what's going wrong with this all the time" and heard, from the phone, "what do you think might be going wrong" ... well, that sent the hairs along my spine rising! I think what might be going wrong is that the "helpful" Assistant might need to be fired, deleted, or otherwise obliterated.

This is certainly not what Merwin had in mind when conjuring the "whispered sighing ... echo ... between the earth and silence".

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