W. S. Merwin Named Next Poet Laureate

Did I think it would abide as it was forever
      all that time ago the turned earth in the old garden
where I stood in spring remembering spring in another place
      that had ceased to exist and the dug roots kept giving up
their black tokens their coins and bone buttons and shoe nails
      made by hands and bits of plates as the thin clouds
of that season slipped past gray branches on which the early
      white petals were catching their light and I thought I knew
something of age then my own age which had conveyed me
      to there and the ages of the trees and the walls and houses
from before my coming and the age of the new seeds as I
      set each one in the ground to begin to remember
what to become and the order in which to return
      and even the other age into which I was passing
all the time while I was thinking of something different