"I have watched your smile in your sleep
and I know it is the boat
in which my sun rides under the earth
all night on the wave of your breath
no wonder the days grow short
and waking without you
is the beginning of winter
"How is it that I can hear your bird voice now
trickling among the ice towers
through the days of the anvil
as the year turns I carry an echo
over my own stones and I listen
my eyes are open looking ahead
I walk a little ahead of myself touching
the air where nobody sees you
and the sun as it sets through the forest of windows
unrolls slowly
its unrepeatable secret
all the colors of autumn without the leaves
"You were shaking and an air full of leaves
flowed out of the dark falls of your hair
down over the rapids of your knees
until I touched you and you grew quiet
and raised to me
your hands and your eyes and showed me
twice my face burning in amber
"Already on the first hill with you beside me
at the foot of the ruins I saw through the day
and went on without pausing
loving the unheld air
as a wing might love it flying
toward you unknowing
knowing
"When they are together our hands are of an age
and a dark light flows up between them
into its feathers
We have brought
nothing with us
but what has come of itself
we pass the stone fragments
the ancient smiles holding out
no hands
like the trees their sisters born older
"I trust neither memory nor expectation
but even the white days of cities
belong to what they do not see
even the heart of the doubters' light is gold
even when you are not with me
in the flowerless month of the door god
you look at me with your eyes of arrival
"Thirty days after the solstice
forms of ripe wheat
emerge from the tips of the branches
Far outside them
here
where you have never been
I reach for you with my eyes
I call you with my body
that knows your one name
"Days when I do not hear you
it seems that the season flows backward
but it is only
I
of hollow streets
deaf smoke
rain on water
"We cross the smooth night lake together
in the waiting boat
we are welcomed without lights
again and again we emerge by day
hand in hand
from all four corridors at once
under the echoing dome
guided by what has not been said
"The shadow of my moving foot
feels your direction
you come toward me
bringing the gold through the rust
you step to me through the city of amber
under the moon and the sun
voice not yet in the words
what is spoken is already
another year."
-- W.S. Merwin
Details:
"Kore" by W.S. Merwin - to read the complete piece (nope, this isn't the whole thing), see his collection
The Compass Flower.
Photos by Josh.
Glasses//Ray Ban
Necklace//Antique
Dress (worn as blouse)//Vintage, 1980s
Skirt//Vintage, 1980s
Trench Coat//Vintage, Thrifted
Cardigan//Charlotte Russe
Shoes//Vintage, 1980s via
The Paraders
