----- Original Message ----
From: Edgar Schuster <
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To:
[log in to unmask]Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2008 4:31:43 PM
Subject: punctuation anyone?
Folks,
A friend just sent me the following poem by W. S. Merwin:
Before A Departure in Spring
Once more it is April with the first light sifting
through the young leaves heavy with dew making the colors
remember who they are the new pink of the cinnamon tree
the gilded lichens of the bamboo the shadowed bronze
of the kamani and the blue day
opening
as the sunlight descends through it all like the return
of a spirit touching without touch and unable
to believe it is here and here again and awake
reaching out in silence into the cool breath
of the garden just risen from darkness and days of rain
it is only a moment the birds fly through it calling
to each other and are gone with their few notes and the flash
of their flight that had vanished before we ever knew it
we watch without touching any of it and we
can tell ourselves only that this is April this is the morning
this never happened before and we both remember it
I love it myself, and had no trouble reading it in spite of its total absence of punctuation. Thought I'd share it
with fellow grammarians and punctuation lovers.
Just one question: Would the addition of punctuation improve it or spoil it?
Ed Schuster
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