Separation

Just before school let out for Christmas break, my friend, Allison, told me about a poem she loved. We’d been talking about how it feels to teach a poem or book��we cherish knowing there’s a possibility it won’t resonate as deeply with our students. ��I’ve often had that experience. ��I’ll introduce my students to a story that has rocked me to my core only to have them shrug their shoulders after reading it. ��“But, what about that moment when the main character turned to his friend and said . . .” I’ll plead. ��Or, “what about that scene when the girl . . . .” ��I stare into their blank young faces and wonder how could they not be moved. ��How can they not feel the rush of pleasure or the crushing sorrow?

“There are some pieces of literature��you just have to keep for yourself,” Allison said. And then she told me about her favorite poem, W. S. Merwin’s “Separation.” She was riding on the subway in New York, and the poem, part of a public arts project, was printed on a poster inside the subway car. “I’d just experienced a great loss,” Allison said. ” I was young, in my twenties. I happened to look up and I saw that poem. It tore right through me.”

It must have, because in the next breath, Allison recited the poem from memory. Her voice grew softer, and for an instant, an old sadness swept over��her expression. ��When she finished, we both looked at each other. The dismissal bell rang, and beyond Allison’s classroom, the hall echoed with student’s laugher. ��“I love that poem,” Alison said. ��“But I’ll never teach it.”

I understood exactly what she meant.

I own a few books of Merwin’s poetry, and when I got home that afternoon I found the poem Alison recited. ��Reading it took me right back to that moment in her��classroom, and back further still, to the crowded subway car. ��I imagined her sitting there, alone, reading the poem to herself and being barely��able to breathe. Because that’s what a good poem does. ��It leaves you breathless. It captures��all the emotion, all the thoughts and feelings that are almost too intense to bear, and boils them down into their most concentrated form. So even if you don’t normally like poetry, I invite you to try this one. Read it slowly. Sit with it. Let it sink in. See if it doesn’t leave you shattered.

Separation

BY��W. S. MERWIN

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.