soundless music (to the new year) & Emily

W. S. Merwin's poetry never ceases to move me... his words and images create a realm of soundless music where I long to be, where poetic yearning is such poignant and yet quiet beauty.


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

～"To the New Year," by W. S. Merwin

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And my beloved Emily... on this new day.

It's all I have to bring today— 

This, and my heart beside— 

This, and my heart, and all the fields— 

And all the meadows wide— 

Be sure you count—should I forget 

Some one the sum could tell— 

This, and my heart, and all the Bees 

Which in the Clover dwell.

～"It's all I have to bring today," by Emily Dickinson

A fine and rare celadon-glazed shell-shaped brush washer, seal mark and period of Qianlong.
Photo credit: Sotheby's.