Summer

Be of this brightness dyed
Whose unrecking fever
Flings gold before it goes
Into voids finally
That have no measure.

Bird-sleep moonset,
Island after island,
Be of their hush
On this tide that balance
A time, for a time.

Islands are not forever,
Nor this light again,
Tide-set, brief summer,
Be of their secret
That fears no other.

Copyright © 2005 W. S. Merwin All rights reserved
from Migration
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission