beginning (it is north everywhere)

  

.

Long before spring

king of the black cranes

rises one day

from the black

needle’s eye

on the white plain

under the white sky

the crown turns

and the eye

drilled clear through his head

turns

it is north everywhere

come out he says

come out then

the light is not yet

divided

it is a long way 

to the first

anything

come even so

we will start

bring your nights with you

—W.S. Merwin

The Carriers of Ladders, 

Pulitzer Prize for poetry, 1971

 

.

   

May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great fire,
so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it.

And may light shine out of the two eyes of you,
like a candle set in the window of a house,
bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm.

And may the blessing of the rain be on you,
may it beat upon your Spirit and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines,
and sometimes a star.

And may the blessing of the earth be on you,
soft under your feet as you pass along the roads,
soft under you as you lie out on it, tired at the end of day;
and may it rest easy over you when, at last, you lie out under it.

May it rest so lightly over you that your soul may be out from under it quickly; up and off and on its way to God.

And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly.

Amen

—Scottish blessing

.