sw00323s-aw3.4poems

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 Accompaniments: Where There Is Room
       4 poems for W. S. Merwin
       written in my copy of his 1973 book:
       Writings for an Unfinished Accompaniment




1

"In This Last Hour of Sun"


by towering grays
grayed
around gray me
and the gray rock I rest on
and the quilted brown-gray lake

white sails stroll
a bright-green fly jewels my finger
a dull rainbow of cars looks out

and later/ when the acquaintance leaves

near a soft-magenta margin of sky
where the blackish horizon ruffles

flashes
of ragged
cracks

glowing fans of electrons

periods

of water   of light


       (written on page 11 under "Letter to the Heart")




2

"Does it fit"


to talk of Eden

after the snake
has wound
back under the roots

and the Son
has somehow magicked Himself
beyond our clouds

though this is   where I am?


       (written on page 12 under "Memory of the Loss of Wings")




3

"Gide"


coming to terms--
that 1 + 1 = 2   not 3--
is hard

so one poem's sour
another sweet
another this

me in my car near the lighthouse again
boy/girl lovers on either side
my finger's shadow   darkening   where I write

and the waves snap--
a few as far as   my windows
closing in on midnight sinking away

while someone perhaps   awakened
wonders   whose I am:
his or hers


       (written on page 13 under "The Old Boast")




4

"Mt. Tamalpais"


I was not the first there
the day I went up
I was not the last

but where I walked
climbed
only I did

and how I prayed
that Sunday morning
I did alone

yet resting talking
I know others
and the birds rocks shrubs grasses trees
and the windy light that warmed me
and the amoeba fog below
moved   worshipped
more sacredly   than I


       (written on page 14 under "The Day")





Brian A. J. Salchert