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Heights

By W.S. MerwinPosted Wednesday, May 9, 2001, at 3:00 AM ET

The dark morning says See how you forget

mountains camped by a stream
the chipped lake
gold strokes on the high
clawed hollows
where you never set foot

what would you see from there

not the past
which is fiction
nor the present which is the past

you would stand there shaken
in the presence of vertigo the god
clutching the air

hearing that one
note

you keep forgetting

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Lilly Prize winner W.S. Merwin's latest book of poetry is titled The Folding Cliffs. He is the author of The Vixen.
Click here to visit Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project site.
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