Poem of the month

selected by David Underdown, who supplies the comment

Dew Light

by W.S. Merwin

Now in the blessed days of more and less
when the news about time is that each day
there is less of it I know none of that
as I walk out through the early garden
only the day and I are here with no
before or after and the dew looks up
without a number or a present age

W. S. Merwin was born in New Jersey in 1927 and, as well as being an acclaimed poet, is an accomplished translator. He was the United States Poet Laureate in 2010-11 and now lives on the Pacific island of Maui. This poem is taken from his latest collection ‘The Moon Before Morning’ (Bloodaxe, 2014). In a few brief lines he captures not only how in old age ‘the news about time is that there is less of it’ but how the possibility remains of life ‘with no before or after’.