W.S. Merwin
2005 National Book Award Winner
Copper Canyon Press extends heartfelt congratulations to W.S. Merwin, winner of the 2005 National Book Award for Poetry for his collection Migration: New & Selected Poems.
Carolyn Kizer
Brother, I Am Here
Coolness, like the evening tide,
Covers, one by one, the steps of the
twisting trail
And slips into your heart.
You sit on the threshold
Of the dismal shack that squats behind you.
Like birds, leaves drift
from the locust trees
And little moon-coins float
On the ripple of
waves.
You belonged to the sun, the prairie,
The dikes, the world of
amorous jewel-black eyes.
The you belonged to the hurricane,
To the
route, the torches, the arms
Supporting each other.
Soldier, your life
was plangent as a bell
Shaking the shadows from the human heart.
Now
the wind steals away with alien steps;
It refuses to believe
That you
are melancholy still.
But I am with you, Brother,
And the newsstand,
the park benches, the apple cores
Revive in your recollection
With
smiles and lamps and delicate rhythms.
Then they glide away on the lines
of the writing paper.
Only when the night wind
Shifts the direction
of your thoughts,
Only when that trumpet of yours
Is suddenly silent,
craving echoes,
I shall be back (with hope alive)
Calmly at your side,
to say
Brother, I am here.
Translated from the Chinese of Shu
Ting