When a poem is really finished, you can't change anything. You can't move words around. You can't say, 'In other words, you mean.' No, that's not it. There are no other words in which you mean it. This is it. W. S. Merwin More Quotes by W. S. Merwin More Quotes From W. S. Merwin Separation Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color. W. S. Merwin missing-someone missing-you i-miss-you From what we cannot hold the stars are made. W. S. Merwin stars made Your absence has gone through me W. S. Merwin gone absence missing-you Any work of art makes one very simple demand on anyone who genuinely wants to get in touch with it. And that is to stop. You've got to stop what you're doing, what you're thinking, and what you're expecting and just be there for the poem for however long it takes. W. S. Merwin simple art thinking Obviously a garden is not the wilderness but an assembly of shapes, most of them living, that owes some share of its composition, it’s appearance, to human design and effort, human conventions and convenience, and the human pursuit of that elusive, indefinable harmony that we call beauty. It has a life of its own, an intricate, willful, secret life, as any gardener knows. It is only the humans in it who think of it as a garden. But a garden is a relationship, which is one of the countless reasons why it is never finished. W. S. Merwin design garden thinking On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree W. S. Merwin want tree world We are asleep with compasses in our hands. W. S. Merwin compass hands I think there's a kind of desperate hope built into poetry that one really wants, hopelessly, to save the world. One is trying to say everything that can be said for the things that one loves while there's still time. W. S. Merwin trying world thinking I say to my breath once again, little breath come from in front of me, go away behind me, row me quietly now, as far as you can, for I am an abyss that I am trying to cross. W. S. Merwin going-away littles trying We are not born to survive. Only to live. W. S. Merwin live-life born life Poetry is a way of looking at the world for the first time. W. S. Merwin way world art What you remember saves you. W. S. Merwin remember The story of each stone leads back to a mountain. W. S. Merwin mountain stones stories Now all my teachers are dead except silence. W. S. Merwin silence teacher What I really believe is the only hopeful relation between our life and the whole of life is one of reverence and respect and of feeling at one with it. The other attitude which is the one our society is based on is devastating and it is killing the earth and it is killing us too. W. S. Merwin hopeful attitude believe Of course there is nothing the matter with the stars It is my emptiness among them While they drift farther away in the invisible morning W. S. Merwin numbness stars morning Laughter was the shape the darkness took around the first appearance of the light. W. S. Merwin laughter light darkness I have with me all that I do not knowI have lost none of it. W. S. Merwin knows lost I needed my mistakes in their order to get me here W. S. Merwin my-mistakes mistake order I will take with me the emptiness of my hands. What you do not have you find everywhere W. S. Merwin emptiness hands
