Garden Time Quotes

“Old Man At Home Alone in the Morning"

There are questions that I no longer ask
and others that I have not asked for a long time
that I return to and dust off and discover
that I’m smiling and the question
has always been me and that it is
no question at all but that it means
different things at the same time
yes I am old now and I am the child
I remember what are called the old days and there is
no one to ask how they became the old days
and if I ask myself there is no answer
so this is old and what I have become
and the answer is something I would come to
later when I was old but this morning
is not old and I am the morning
in which the autumn leaves have no question
as the breeze passes through them and is gone”
― W.S. Merwin, Garden Time

“endless patience will never be enough
the only hope is to be the daylight”
― W.S. Merwin, Garden Time

“Voices Over Water"

There are spirits that come back to us
when we have grown into another age
we recognize them just as they leave us
we remember them when we cannot hear them
some of them come from the bodies of birds
some arrive unnoticed like forgetting
they do not recall earlier lives
and there are distant voices still hoping to find us”
― W.S. Merwin, Garden Time

“Late in May as the light lengthens
toward summer the young goldfinches
flutter down through the day for the first time
to find themselves among fallen petals
cradling their day’s colors in the day’s shadows
of the garden beside the old house”
― W.S. Merwin, Garden Time

“but happiness has a shape made of air / it was never owned by anyone / it comes when it will in its own time — W.S. Merwin, from “December Morning,” Garden Time (Copper Canyon Press, 2016)”
― W.S. Merwin, Garden Time

“by day the known world
lost color
my hold on it felt loose
I imagine that was part
of the grief I knew”
― W.S. Merwin, Garden Time

“There are spirits that come back to us
when we have grown into another age
we recognize them just as they leave us
we remember them when we cannot hear them
some of them come from the bodies of birds
some arrive unnoticed like forgetting
they do not recall earlier lives
and there are distant voices still hoping to find us

— W.S. Merwin, “Voices Over Water,” Garden Time. (Copper Canyon Press September 13, 2016)”
― W.S. Merwin, Garden Time

“All night while the rain fell
the dark valley heard in silence
the silent valley did not remember
you were asleep beside me
while the rain fell all around us
I listened to you breathing
I wanted to remember
the sound of your breath
but we lay there forgetting
asleep and awake
forgetting a breath at a time
while the rain went on falling around us.

— W.S. Merwin, from “The Sound of Forgetting,” Garden Time (Copper Canyon Press, 2016)”
― W.S. Merwin, Garden Time

“The Morning”

Would I love it this way if it could last
would I love it this way if it
were the whole sky the one heaven
or if I could believe that it belonged to me
a possession that was mine alone
or if I imagined that it noticed me
recognized me and may have come to see me
out of all the mornings that I never knew
and all those that I have forgotten
would I love it this way if I were somewhere else
or if I were younger for the first time
or if these very birds were not singing
or I could not hear them or see their trees
would I love it this way if I were in pain
red torment of body or gray void of grief
would I love it this way if I knew
that I would remember anything that is
here now anything anything”
― W.S. Merwin, Garden Time

“my love was always
woven with leaving”
― W.S. Merwin, Garden Time

“now there is only the river
that was always on its own way”
― W.S. Merwin, Garden Time

“one morning near the end of spring
among the invisible unheard stars I sing
this one time with the hope that is here
in every breath
may these notes be heard another morning
in another life
in another spring together”
― W.S. Merwin, Garden Time

“your note is the time of your radiance
arriving once just as the sun does”
― W.S. Merwin, Garden Time