Merwin

Merwin The Language of Nature W.S. Merwin’s poems are of great lyrical intensity, concerned with darkness and light, the seasons, and the passing of time across landscapes. His lyrics capture the spiritual heartbreak of our time. He illustrates the bittersweet joys of vanishing wilderness in Native Trees, anger at our political wrong-doings in Term, and the emotions that memory can generate in Hearing the Names of the Valley’s. Merwin uses trees as a symbol of identity, specifically Hawaiian identity, in Native Trees. The first line states, “Neither my father or mother knew the names of the trees where I was born” (pg. 1). The child is curious to know about his culture and past, in which knowing these things forms identity. By asking questions about the trees, the child can have a greater sense of his identity. The parents do not answer his questions about the trees because they do not know the answers to them. “Both my father and mother said they never knew” (pg. 1). The reason to why they might not know the answers may be that the parents have never questioned the “trees” as their child does. It appears that they have accepted the deterioration of their Hawaiian identity road, trees, pg, language, cannot, identity, words, nature, names, land, because, part, individual, importance, hawaiian, culture, child, about, able, time, represent, questions, past, old, meaning, man, life, knowing, know, just, history, grasp, generations, different, concerned, 60