“Look at the old house in the dawn rain
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all the flowers are forms of water
the sun reminds them through a white cloud”
– W.S. Merwin
The poet W.S. Merwin‘s commitment to the earth and the environment was a chosen response to the larger crisis of disconnect between people and nature. The loss of this connection underlies a psychic discord, the result of the realization, in the poet’s words, of a ‘world that is literally dissolving around you.’ Merwin said about his poem, Rain Light, ‘this is not a rational poem at all.’ It moves around references to death and fear, as well as the invigorating experience of morning rain that evokes a glimpse of the ongoing and interconnected nature of the world and its robust and cyclical commitment to just being.
Rain Light
All day the stars watch from long ago
my mother said I am going now
when you are alone you will be all right
whether or not you know you will know
look at the old house in the dawn rain
all the flowers are forms of water
the sun reminds them through a white cloud
touches the patchwork spread on the hill
the washed colors of the afterlife
that lived there long before you were born
see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning.
W.S. Merwin (1927-2019)
From: The Shadow of Sirius