To W.S. Merwin

I was in the bookstore Borders
for their going out of business sale
and I wandered from Music to Poetry
as I always do there was your recent
book of poems Present Company
in which you address many ordinary things
in simple plain language that works through
complex thoughts and lines of thought

I picked up and put down your book
several times wandering back to it
going over to read Borges or Whitman
then coming back picking yours up
and paging through it at random
till I decided to buy it anyway
and brought it home to read

Now I am walking out in the early night
around the block a thin crescent moon
is about to set in the summer heat
which has waved aurorae and mirage
around the street lanterns all night and day
now I am walking fast enough to exercise
my heart legs and pained other self
gaining ground going uphill at last
to return to my own yard with its last lilies
now I am looking again at the last inch
of moon parsed behind oak and spruce
silhouettes against and emerging North Star

i think about your poems some more
as I walk especially the ones on larger things
I like poems that aren't afraid of eternity
and I also like the poems about small things
because you open them up to questions
very large questions asking those things
that poets need to ask and so rarely do
questions that spin out from the small into
the long and large without ever losing shape

I come home after my walk sweaty just a little
and look through your book at random again
I think all poets should read these poems
their questions their simple language that
embodies complex perceptions
this is one for the keeping of secrets
and the revealing of truths whether known
or not yet known