Garden Time

"Merwin has attained a transcendent and transformative elevation of beaming perception, exquisite balance, and clarifying beauty." —Booklist, starred review of The Moon before Morning

"Merwin has become instantly recognizable on the page." —Helen Vendler, The New York Review of Books

W.S. Merwin composed Garden Time during the difficult process of losing his eyesight. When he could no longer see well enough to write, he dictated his new poems to his wife, Paula. In this gorgeous, mindful, and life-affirming book, our greatest poet channels energy from animated sounds and memories to remind us that "the only hope is to be the daylight."

From "A Breath of Day":

Last night I slept on the floor of the sea
in an unsounded part of the ocean
in the morning it was a long way up
through the dark streets of a silent country
with no language in its empty houses
until I had almost reached the surface
of a morning that I had never seen
then a breeze came to it and I began
to remember the voices of young leaves . . .

W.S. Merwin served as Poet Laureate of the United States and has received every major literary accolade, including two Pulitzer prizes, most recently for The Shadow of Sirius (Copper Canyon), and the National Book Award for Migration: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon). He lives in Hawaii.