Authority
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A prolific poet and translator, W.S. Merwin’s (1927—) style has changed over the years from traditional to free form. Merwin won the
. . . MORE »By W. S. Merwin
At the beginning the oldest man sat on the corner
of the garden wall by the road under a vast
walnut tree known to have been there always
he came back in the afternoon to the cave of shade
in his broad black hat black jacket the striped gray
wool trousers once worn only to church in winter
with a cane on either side resting against the stones
he said when your legs have gone all you can do
is to sit this way and be useless I believe God
has forgotten me but I think and I remember
he said that is what I am doing I am thinking
and things come to me now when nobody else knows them
he was visited by the dazzling of accidents the boy
who caught his hand in the trip hammer and it came out
like cigarette paper the man with both crushed legs
dangling and the woman murdered and his father the blacksmith
forging the iron fence to put around the place
out on the bare slope where she had fallen I could never
be the smith my father was as he always told me
I was good enough you know but I never had
the taste needed for scythe blades sickles kitchen knives
we preferred to use carriage springs to make them from
in the forge outside the barn there and his were sought after
oh when he had sold all he took to the fair the others
could begin I still have the die for stamping the name
of the village in the blade at the end so you could be sure
W. S. Merwin, “Authority” from The Vixen. Copyright © 2000 by W. S. Merwin. Reprinted with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.