we are asleep with compasses in our hands

[nightdog_barks]

That's a line from a poem by W.S. Merwin, called The Estuary. He passed away this morning, aged 91. Here's one of his short poems --

Separation

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

Comments

[bironic]

There's something painful about the consonants there, the jump from t to t -- "stitched" -- you can feel it going through his gut. Also fascinating, the choice of the loved one's absence as the thread rather than the eye of the needle. His loss, his grief, makes just as much sense as the eye, but the description is unexpected.