This week, W.S. Merwin won his second Pulitzer prize in poetry for The Shadow Of Sirius. In general, Merwin is a fascinating creature: a child he wrote hymns (his father was a minister) and along with being a successful and highly prolific poet, he is a well-established translator of pretty much every other Romance language into English. Merwin is now in his 80's and lives in Maui where he is deeply involved in restoration of the tropical forests.
When You Go Away
by W.S. Merwin
When you go away the wind clicks around to the north
The painters work all day but at sundown the paint falls
Showing the black walls
The clock goes back to striking the same hour
That has no place in the years
And at night wrapped in the bed of ashes
In one breath I wake
It is the time when the beards of the dead get their growth
I remember that I am falling
That I am the reason
And that my words are the garment of what I shall never be
Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy
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