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“Bread and Butter” by W. S. Merwin 🇺🇸 (30 Sep 192715 Mar 2019)
I keep finding this letter
To the gods of abandon,
Tearing it up: Sirs,
Having lived in your shrines
I know what I owe you—
I don’t, did I ever? With both hands
I’ve forgotten, I keep
Having forgotten. I’ll have no such shrines here.
I will not bow in the middle of the room
To the statue of nothing
With the flies turning around it.
On these four walls I am the writing.
Why would I start such a letter?
Think of today, think of tomorrow.
Today on the tip of my tongue,
Today with my eyes,
Tomorrow the vision,
Tomorrow
In the broken window
The broken boats will come in,
The life boats
Waving their severed hands,
And I will love as I ought to
Since the beginning.