A Poetry Break

So, you heard that W.S. Merwin was named the U.S. poet laureate, right? I'm pretty excited about this because it is so very well deserved. Every time I pick up his Pulitzer Prize winner, The Shadow of Sirius, while I'm hanging around the poetry section I read a different poem and with every poem, I am floored. I am not a poetry person. I love the idea of it, I love pretending I know who is who in poetry and what they are all about. But poetry is hard for me. It takes a lot of concentration and focus. It requires me to think real hard, outside of the box, and imagine.

All of this is to say that I connect with Merwin's poems and that surprises me and makes me happy. I think that you might be able to, as well.

Can we just sit and read one together?
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Note

Remember how the naked soul
comes to language and at once knows
loss and distance and believing

then for a time it will not
run with its old freedom
like a light innocent of measure
but will hearken to how
one story becomes another
and will try to tell where
they have emerged from
and where they are heading
as though they were its own legend
running before the words and beyond them
naked and never looking back

through the noise of questions

--W.S. Merwin, Shadow of Sirius
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Any interpretations of this poem are welcome in the comments.

--Anna, Events