All the hours.

William Stanley Merwin (1927-2019) was an American poet and in his later years a became serious practitioner of Zen in the same lineage that I follow.

In the evening
all the hours that weren’t used
are emptied out
and the beggars are waiting to gather them up
to open them
to find the sun in each one
and teach it its beggar’s name
and sing to it It is well
through the night

but each of us
has his own kingdom of pains
and has not yet found them all
and is sailing in search of them day and night
infallible undisputed unresting
filled with a dumb use
and its time
like a finger in a world without hands

William Stanley Merwin

You can read more of WS Merwin’s poetry here. A visit well worth your while.


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