I am strange here and often I am still trying
To finish something as the light is going
Occasionally as just now I think I see
Off to one side someone passing at that time
Through the herded walls under the walnut trees
And I look up but it is only
Evening again the old hat without a head
How long will it be till he speaks when he passes

About the Author

W. S. Merwin received the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for The Shadow of Sirius. His many works of poetry and translation included Present Company (2007), Migration: New and Selected Poems (2005), and a version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2004). He lived in Hawaii.