when they are converted to your gods
do you know who they are praying to
do you know who is praying
for you not to be there
This is a pretty solid book of poems and an improvement on his previous book. The nature imagery is, as usual, really thick and beautiful. He spends a little time musing on some other subjects he’s talked about briefly before, mainly life in the city. I honestly don’t have a whole lot to say about this one. It’s solid, but also nowhere near the kind of genius Merwin is capable of in his best work. This one is short and features mostly short poems; it’s definitely worth reading, but it’s less essential than a lot of his work. 3 stars.
tl;dr – solid, but also rather unremarkable collection falls short of the genius Merwin is capable of, but is still worth a read. 3 stars.