Saturday, March 16, 2019

March 16: Memory and Time and Beauty, W. S. Merwin, "After the Dragonflies"

Yesterday, the great poet W. S. Merwin passed away at the age of 91.  He was the same age as my father, born in the same year.

Therefore, today, I want to honor him.  Share a poem about memory and time and beauty.  

Saint Marty sees dragonflies all the time still.  Thank God.

After the Dragonflies

by:  W. S. Merwin

Dragonflies were as common as sunlight
hovering in their own days
backward forward and sideways
as though they were memory
now there are grown-ups hurrying
who never saw one
and do not know what they 
are not seeing
the veins in a dragonfly's wings
were made of light
the veins in the leaves knew them
and the flowing rivers
the dragonflies came out of the color of water
knowing their own way
when we appeared in their eyes
we were strangers
they took their light with them when they went
there will be no one to remember us


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