“no matter where i go, no matter what i do / i’ll never be 23 with anyone but you”

[larryhammer]

For Poetry Monday:

Separation, W.S. Merwin

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.


First published in the Jan. 1962 issue of Poetry.

---L.

Subject quote from 23, Sam Hunt, which I now have stuck in my head dangit.

Comments

[mekare]

Oh what a beautiful metaphor

[larryhammer]

I know, right? It's very classical Japanese.

[mme_n_b]

Reminds me of a traditional Yakut poem, in which a woman says that she put her sewing bag into her husband's grave, because she's no one to sew for now and wishes her life to continue on the same road with his.

[larryhammer]

Now I need to track down some translations from Yakut/Sakha.

[mme_n_b]

Please post if you do! I've only read their poetry in Russian translation, and Russian forces its own pattern on poetry much more than English does.