To the Grass of Autumn
You could never believe
It would come to this
One still morning
When before you noticed
the birds
already
were all but gone
even though year upon year
the rehearsal of it
must have surprised
your speechless parents
and unknown antecedents
long ago gathered to dust
and though even the children
have been taught how to say
the word withereth
no you were known to be
cool and countless
the bright vision on all
the green hills
rippling in unmeasured waves
through the days in flower
now you are as the fog
that sifts among you
gray in the chill daybreak
the voles scratch the dry earth
around your roots
hoping to find something before winter
and when the white air stirs
you whisper to yourselves
without exception
or need to know
September 18, 2001
Poems by W. S. Merwin
Present Company
Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2007
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