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Oh my gosh!!! I bet I’ve looked at 50 New Year’s poems that left me feeling like… well… like January 1st — as cold inside as out! But I finally settled on one that at least left me feeling a LITTLE hopeful! (eyes roll off my Tablemate and onto the carpet — now I have to clean up THAT mess as well as potato chips, veggies, cheese, summer sausage, wine bottles… Yes. We made a mess watching Godzilla last night. One of my favorite movies. It was a toss up between that and Pacific Rim… 😮 😀 )

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W.S. Merwin

(born September 30, 1927) is an American poet, credited with over fifty books of poetry, translation andprose. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin’s unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, Merwin’s writing influence derived from his interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in Hawaii, he writes prolifically and is dedicated to the restoration of the islands’ rainforests.

Merwin has received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (in both 1971 and 2009), the National Book Award for Poetry (2005) and the Tanning Prize, one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets, as well as the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. In 2010, the Library of Congress named Merwin the seventeenth United States Poet Laureate to replace the outgoing Kay Ryan. Following his receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2009, Merwin is recognized as one of the principal contributors to poetry in the early 21st century. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)

 

To The New Year

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pixdaus.com

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible