{"id":5775,"date":"2013-04-22T09:14:07","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T13:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=5775"},"modified":"2013-04-22T09:14:07","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T13:14:07","slug":"day-22-of-national-poetry-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-22-of-national-poetry-month.html","title":{"rendered":"day #22 of National Poetry Month ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/vimeo.com\/19417155<\/a><\/p>\n

I confess to a huge crush on W.S. Merwin, begun long before I met him at a Nimrod Literary Journal<\/a> weekend. His work is amazing. He’s a Buddhist from way back. And he’s trying very hard to restore & save a palm forest on Maui. Not to mention he’s just a lovely person, when you meet him. Brilliant, wryly witty, contemplative.\u00a0 He seems particularly appropriate for Earth Day, poetry month, and a\u00a0 Buddhist blog.<\/p>\n

Icing on the cake for me: Merwin met Ezra Pound, a literary hero of mine. He sat with Pound at St. Elizabeth’s, where Pound was institutionalised. And I sat w\/ Merwin at Nimrod. \ud83d\ude42 That felt as much like being part of a literary tradition as anything I’ve had the good luck to enjoy.<\/p>\n

And finally — today’s poem has bees in it! Here’s ‘The River of Bees” by W.S. Merwin:<\/p>\n

The River of Bees<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a dream I returned to the river of bees
\nFive orange trees by the bridge and
\nBeside two mills my house
\nInto whose courtyard a blind man followed
\nThe goats and stood singing
\nOf what was older<\/p>\n

Soon it will be fifteen years<\/p>\n

He was old he will have fallen into his eyes<\/p>\n

I took my eyes
\nA long way to the calenders
\nRoom after room asking how shall I live<\/p>\n

One of the ends is made of streets
\nOne man processions carry through it
\nEmpty bottles their
\nImages of hope
\nIt was offered to me by name<\/p>\n

Once once and once
\nIn the same city I was born
\nAsking what shall I say<\/p>\n

He will have fallen into his mouth
\nMen think they are better than grass<\/p>\n

I return to his voice rising like a forkful of hay<\/p>\n

He was old he is not real nothing is real
\nNor the noise of death drawing water<\/p>\n

We are the echo of the future<\/p>\n

On the door it says what to do to survive
\nBut we were not born to survive
\nOnly to live<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I confess to a huge crush on W.S. Merwin, begun long before I met him at a Nimrod Literary Journal weekend. His work is amazing. He’s a Buddhist from way back. And he’s trying very hard to restore & save a palm forest on Maui. Not to mention he’s just a lovely person, when you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,22],"tags":[1188,11,1181,1187,262,521,520,318,1190,519],"class_list":["post-5775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bees","category-poetry","tag-bees","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-earth-day","tag-merwin-studies","tag-national-poetry-month","tag-poetry","tag-w-s-merwin"],"yoast_head":"\nday #22 of National Poetry Month ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I confess to a huge crush on W.S. 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5775"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5782,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5775\/revisions\/5782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}