W.S. Merwin – Oct 15, Iyengar III

Merwin lived on Maui for decades, planting a magnificent garden. It was his birthday while I was on Kauai. From his last collection…Yes, I’m still obsessed with water.

STILL WATER

Clouds over the mountaintops were its ancestors

fine rain gathered in rills among the hidden crags

each vein finding its way to its own kin

joining them and gathering speed and finding its voices

taking along flakes of starlight moonlight

daylight down through the wild distances

through dreams of flying and forgetting

and dreams of belonging but departing

now it lies there at last by its green pasture

and cradles the stillness of the empty sky

this is the present it was flowing toward

this is the face that it can never see