Song of Three Smiles
By W. S. Merwin
Let me call a ghost,
Love, so it be little:
In December we took
No thought for the weather.
Whom now shall I thank
For this wealth of water?
Your heart loves harbors
Where I am a stranger.
Where was it we lay
Needing no other
Twelve days and twelve nights
In each other’s eyes?
Or was it at Babel
And the days too small
We spoke our own tongue
Needing no other?
If a seed grow green
Set a stone upon it
That it learn thereby
Holy charity.
If you must smile
Always on that other,
Cut me from ear to ear
And we all smile together.
Copyright Credit: W. S. Merwin, “Song of Three Smiles” from The First Four Books of Poems (Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2000). Copyright © 2000 by W. S. Merwin. Reprinted with the permission of The Wylie Agency, Inc.
Source: The First Four Books of Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 1975)