A Conversation
W. S. Merwin
(From 'Houses & Travellers')
There is a wind that when it turns I hear the garden and the desert discussing things with each other. Sometimes in the garden, sometimes in the desert, day or night. Mud walls, stone walls, no walls, limestone, sheep far away, howling, birds singing, hissing, trickling, silence, dry smells, watered smells, moons, stars, flowers that are keys between them.
They tell their dreams to each other, the garden and the desert. They dream above all of each other. The desert dreams of the garden inside it. It loves the garden. It embraces the garden. It wants to turn it into desert. The garden lives within itself. It dreams of the desert all around it, and of its difference from the desert, which it knows is as frail as feeling.
It must be a long time since I first heard them talking. I must have heard them when I was two. I must have heard them when I was one, and so on. Perhaps before I was born. Or anyone was born. Or any roundness became an egg. Or the water was born, cooling on a high rock, prophesying tears, prophesying eyes.
I must have heard them even before the rocks were born moving in the colored night. Probably I have heard them since the light began looking for something to write on, flying on, white, with the colors hidden inside it and the darkness around it, forgetting nothing from the beginning, prophesying the end of knowledge, prophesying the wilderness, prophesying the garden, prophesying the wilderness dreaming that it was a garden. And the garden. And the wilderness.
They tell their dreams to each other, the garden and the desert. They dream above all of each other. The desert dreams of the garden inside it. It loves the garden. It embraces the garden. It wants to turn it into desert. The garden lives within itself. It dreams of the desert all around it, and of its difference from the desert, which it knows is as frail as feeling.
It must be a long time since I first heard them talking. I must have heard them when I was two. I must have heard them when I was one, and so on. Perhaps before I was born. Or anyone was born. Or any roundness became an egg. Or the water was born, cooling on a high rock, prophesying tears, prophesying eyes.
I must have heard them even before the rocks were born moving in the colored night. Probably I have heard them since the light began looking for something to write on, flying on, white, with the colors hidden inside it and the darkness around it, forgetting nothing from the beginning, prophesying the end of knowledge, prophesying the wilderness, prophesying the garden, prophesying the wilderness dreaming that it was a garden. And the garden. And the wilderness.
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