Every year without knowing it I have passed the day W. S. Merwin More Quotes by W. S. Merwin More Quotes From W. S. Merwin I will take with me the emptiness of my hands. What you do not have you find everywhere W. S. Merwin emptiness hands Sitting over words W. S. Merwin echoes dark night Modern poetry, for me, began not in English at all but in Spanish, in the poems of Lorca. W. S. Merwin modern-poetry lorca modern I think it's good for anybody to learn languages. Americans are particularly limited in that way. Europeans less so... We're beginning to have Spanish move in on English in the states because of all the people coming from Hispanic countries... and we're beginning to learn some Spanish. And I think that's a good thing... Only having one language is very limiting... You get to think that's the way the human race is made; there's only one language worth speaking... Well, this isn't good for English. W. S. Merwin country moving thinking come back believer in shade believer in silence and elegance believer in ferns believer in patience believer in the rain W. S. Merwin shade silence rain Politically it would be terribly repressive to prevent people from having as many children as they want. But something's got to prevent it; and it won't be pleasant... We're still behaving in ways that have become disastrous... I don't think this helps us to survive... We're very species-centric... and now exist at the expense of every other form of life on Earth. W. S. Merwin children people thinking I also think that life itself is both indifferent to us and the source of all of our joys and everything that we love. And it's necessary to accept the one in order to love the other. W. S. Merwin joy order thinking It's an attitude of superiority. We are superior to the rest of life. The Book of Genesis says: 'Increase and multiply and have dominion over the birds of the air and the animals and so forth.' You run it; it's yours; do what you like with it. I don't know how old that text is, but it represents an attitude that probably really got going with the beginning of agriculture. Before that, the hunter-gatherers were gentler people than the agriculture. W. S. Merwin running attitude book So this is what I am Pondering his eyes that could not Conceive that I was a creature to run from I who have always believed too much in words W. S. Merwin too-much eye running The global warming is going on. These are not single cases. These are all part of a general way we've been looking at the world. As long as we look at the world that way it's going to go on. Because the idea that the important thing is for some people get rich while the rest of the people work for them is very deeply dug in... W. S. Merwin long people ideas I'm very pessimistic about the future of the human species. We have been so indifferent to life on the whole that it will take its toll. It's not just the polar bears that are having a hard time; what we're doing is gradually impoverishing and poisoning the whole of the rest of life. W. S. Merwin rest-of-life tolls hard-times To say what or where we came from has nothing to do with what or where we came from. We do not come from there any more, but only from each word that proceeds out of the mouth of the unnamed. And yet sometimes it is our only way of pointing to who we are. W. S. Merwin who-we-are mouths way After an age of leaves and feathers someone dead thought of the mountain as money and cut the trees that were here and the wind and the rain at night. It is hard to say it. W. S. Merwin cutting rain night We are the echo of the future. W. S. Merwin future echoes This is what I have heard at last the wind in December lashing the old trees with rain unseen rain racing along the tiles under the moon wind rising and falling wind with many clouds trees in the night wind. W. S. Merwin moon rain fall There are poets who believe that you shouldn't engage at all in any cause. And there's something to be said for that. Because you don't want to - I think most political poetry is very bad. And it's very bad because you know too much to start with. You have a sense that you're right, and you're trying to tell other people what's right. And I think that's always kind of fundamentalism, and I don't like it. W. S. Merwin believe people thinking Through all of youth I was looking for you without knowing what I was looking for W. S. Merwin youth knowing The moment we turn over the soil we start poisoning it and we go on poisoning it all the way through... and there's probably not a river in the United States that doesn't have pesticide poisoning in it. The fish are dying. The seas are getting polluted. All of these things are happening. The rain forests are going. That's what the context is. W. S. Merwin sea rain rivers I have been younger in October W. S. Merwin october months spring I wouldn't be happy about being considered a love poet or an environmental - I don't want any of those tags. W. S. Merwin tag environmental want
