The Moon Before Morning Quotes

“How beautiful you must be
to have been able to lead me
this far with only
the sound of your going away”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“I needed my mistakes
in their order
to get me here”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“What I remember I cannot tell
though it is there in all that I say”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“I have no way of telling what I miss
I am the only one who misses it”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“When I was me I remembered

I could remember what was not there
but may have been there
once”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“where will the meanings be
when the words are forgotten

will I see again
where you are”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“In my youth I believed in somewhere else
I put my faith in travel
now I am becoming my own tree”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“all these years I have looked through your limbs
to the river below and the roofs and the night
and you were the way I saw the world”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“As though it had always been forbidden to remember
each of us grew up
knowing nothing about the beginning”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“Going too fast for myself I missed
more than I think I can remember

almost everything it seems sometimes
and yet there are chances that come back

that I did not notice when they stood
where I could have reached out and touched them”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“The wind lifts the whole branch of the poplar
carries it up and out and holds it there
while each leaf is the whole tree reaching
from its roots in the dark earth out through all
its rings of memory to where it has never been”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“Another To Echo”

How beautiful you must be
to have been able to lead me
this far with only
the sound of your going away
heard once at a time and then
remembered in silence
when the time was gone
you whom I have never seen
o forever invisible one
whom I have never mistaken
for another voice
nor hesitated to follow
beyond precept and prudence
over seas and deserts
you incomparable one
for whom the waters fall
and the winds search
and the words were made
listening

— W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning (Copper Canyon Press, 2014)”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“How It Happens”

The sky said I am watching
to see what you
can make out of nothing
I was looking up and I said
I thought you
were supposed to be doing that
the sky said Many
are clinging to that
I am giving you a chance
I was looking up and I said
I am the only chance I have
then the sky did not answer
and here we are
with our names for the days
the vast days that do not listen to us”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“I turned to the room
and in the light from the street
beheld one beautiful
bare breast of a friend's friend
gently rising and falling
as though I were not there
already not there”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“In the cities the birds are forgotten
among other things but then one could say
that the cities are made of absences
of what disappeared so they could be there”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“Ancient World"

Orange sunset
in the deep shell of summer
a long silence reaching across the dry pastures
in the distance a dog barks
at the sound of a door closing
and at once I am older.”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“Small roads written in sleep in the foothills
how long ago and I believed you were lost
as I saw the bronze deepening in the light
and the shy moss turning to itself holding
its own brightness above the badger’s path
while a single crow sailed west without a sound
and yet we trust without giving it a thought
that we will always see it as we see it once
and that what we know is only
a moment of what is ours and will
always be ours we believe it as
the moment flows away out of reach
and lengthening shadows merge in the valley
and one window kindles there like a first star”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“Long Afternoon Light"

Small roads written in sleep in the foothills
how long ago and I believed you were lost
with the bronze then deepening in the light
and the shy moss turning to itself holding
its own brightness above the badger’s path
while a single crow sailed west without a sound
we trust without giving it a thoughtmeredith rose
that we will always see it as we see it
once and that what we know is only
a moment of what is ours and will stay
we believe it as the moment slips away
as lengthening shadows merge in the valley
and a window kindles there like a first star
what we see again comes to us in secret

— W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning (Copper Canyon Press, 2014)”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“In my youth I believed in somewhere else
I put faith in travel
now I am becoming my own tree

— W.S. Merwin, from “Wild Oats,” The Moon Before Morning (Copper Canyon Press, 2014)”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“CONVENIENCE

We were not made in its image
but from the beginning we believed in it
not for the pure appeasement of hunger
but for its availability
it could command our devotion
beyond question and without our consent
and by whatever name we have called it
in its name love has been set aside
unmeasured time has been devoted to it
forests have been erased and rivers poisoned
and truth has been relegated for it
wars have been sanctified by it
we believe that we have a right to it
even though it belongs to no one
we carry a way back to it everywhere
we are sure that it is saving something
we consider it our personal savior
all we have to pay for it is ourselves”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning

“Wild Oats"

Watching the first sunlight
touch the tops of the palms
what could I ask

All the beads have gone
from the old string
and the string does not miss them

The daughters of memory
never pronounce
their own names

In the language of heaven
the angel said
go make your own garden

I dream I am here
in the morning
and the dream is its own time

Looking into the old well
I see my own face
then another behind it

There I am
morning clouds
in the east wind

No one is in the garden
the autumn daisies
have the day to themselves

All night in the dark valley
the sound of rain arriving
from another time

September when the wind
drops and to us it seems
that the days are waiting

I needed my mistakes
in their own order
to get me here

Here is the full moon
brining us
silence

I call that singing bird my friend
though I know nothing else about him
and he does not know I exist

What is it that I keep forgetting
now I have lost it again
right here

I have to keep telling myself
why I am going away again
I do not seem to listen

In my youth I believed in somewhere else
I put faith in travel
now I am becoming my own tree”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moon Before Morning