Ash
The church in the forest
was built of wood
the faithful carved their names by the doors
same names as ours
soldiers burned it down
the next church where the first had stood
was built of wood
with charcoal floors
names were written in black by the doors
same names as ours
soldiers burned it down
we have a church where the others stood
it's made of ash
no roof no doors
nothing on earth
says it's ours
----------------------------------------------------
Hello Friends,
Today's poem comes from the works of W.S. Merwin, who has been eschewing
punctuation quite successfully in his poetry for over 50 years — except
to dot his own initials.
"Ash" first appeared in his 1973 collection Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment, and is also included in his Selected Poems (1988). You can listen to Merwin read "Ash" to you himself during a great KQED radio interview from a few years ago. And you remember that website I told you about, the Academy of American Poets? They have some pretty neat videos of poets talking about poetry, including W.S. Merwin here.
In 1971, Merwin famously dedicated his Pulitzer Prize money to opposing
the Vietnam War. He moved to Hawai'i in 1976 to study Zen Buddhism and
currently lives on Maui, on a former pinapple plantation that he has
labored to restore to its original rainforest state. He continues to
write poetry, plays, memoirs, short and long prose, and translations and
won the Pultizer Prize in Poetry again just last year.
Best,
Ellen
Labels: NPM, W.S. Merwin