[Kzyxtalk] W.S. Merwin

[sako4 at comcast.net]

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On the last day of the world, I would want to plant a tree. 

W. S. Merwin 







The above is one of my favorite lines of poetry from W.S. Merwin, one of America's greatest poets. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._S._Merwin 





Merwin is also one of our great environmentalists. See: http://www.merwinconservancy.org/about-the-conservancy/ 






"After the Dragonflies" is another fine poem by W.S. Merwin about end times -- global warming, environmental catastrophe, the collapse of the earth's ecosystems, planet earth's near death and the extinction of many, many species, including the dragonfly. This near-death of the planet is the so-called "sixth extinction" that Elizabeth Kolbert also describes in a book by the same name. 

Sometimes, while alone in church on a weekday afternoon when nobody goes to church, I read Merwin's poems aloud from a pew in the back of the church where it's especially dark and lonely. Merwin's poems are the closest thing to prayer that know of. Many of his poems read like prayers of deliverance from the sixth extinction. Other poems are merely prayers of remembrance set in the future after the sixth extinction. "After the Dragonflies" is one such poem of remembrance. 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/oct/10/poem-of-the-week-after-the-dragonflies-by-ws-merwin 

Let us pray. 


John at www.kmecradio.org and The Mendocino Environmental Center 

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