As I mentioned earlier, Keillor’s collection of Good Poems has a few poems that are more than merely good.  W.S. Merwin does not want for acclaim.  Nor does this, perhaps his most famous, poem. It’s really good.

For the Anniversary of My Death

Every year without knowing it
I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

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Perhaps the best compliment you can pay to a poet is to say, “Yup.  I don’t really have anything to add to that.”  The first stanza of this poem surprises and shocks and yet seems deeply, beautifully true.  The silence setting out.  Life as a strange garment.  Bowing not knowing to what.  I guess this is the bookend to “all this juice and all this joy.”