The Sand Hill Review http://www.sandhillreview.org 2009
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Merwin I will tell
you what he told us clustering
around him in the foyer of the old
convent Posada de las Monjas the smell of
good coffee and the smoky fire and the
sweet round of Epiphany bread circling the
room all poetry comes from listening to
what you don’t know you’re
listening to he said stretching out slim legs in
jeans cowboy boots with curved
tops their pattern finely traced he took
questions who is the dreamer how does
that process work someone asked that’s what
you spend your whole life finding out
he would deny this but by then we could
have been any age sitting on
the floor roughly an oval absorbing
him as later the children
of the town would the Reyes Magos with
their spices and bronzefoil coins tell us your
best secrets poetry is
about relation what cannot be said read us a
poem and tell us why you love it from the
chambray shirt pocket a sheet of paper to carry when you travel write some out he
suggested do you know
Hardy‘s Proud Songsters —The
thrushes sing as the sun is going, And the finches whistle in ones and pairs ...As if all time were theirs... ...a year ago or less than twain No finches were...But only particles of grain And wind, and air, and rain— this is an
image of everything he said the silver
hair the still immensely clear blue
eyes you sing and you won’t be there
after awhile do I have to
tell you why I love that poem all you have
is the sound of the bird Notes l. 1: This
line is a slight variant of the first line of W.S. Merwin’s poem, “Berryman,”
i.e. “I will tell you what he told me.”
l. 5: Traditionally the special bread for the Dia de los Reyes Magos, or Epiphany (Jan.
6), la rosca, is baked with a figurine of the baby
Jesus inside. One is told “come con
cuidado,”—eat it carefully. By custom, the
person whose slice contains el
munequito is obliged to host a feast of tamales on Feb. 2, the official
close of the Nativity season. l. 18: In San Miguel del Allende, setting of this
poem, and widely through 1. 25 ff: The excerpts from Thomas Hardy’s poem,
“Proud Songsters,” are taken from the Penguin edition, edited by Robert
Mezey. Elizabeth Chapman |
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