W. S. Merwin's To Myself

Time moves on. As we grow older, we grasp the concept that time cannot, and will not stand still. As the world spins, our physical selves, as well as our mental selves, begin to age. We grow wiser, more mature. But we also forget things as our mind makes effort to remember new ideas, new memories. Our first memories are forgotten, we can 't quite name the people who have left our lives, and we may even forget our own selves at times.
When I first read "To Myself" by W.S. Merwin, I related to the speaker from the way he were in search of himself. The title itself gave me the first impression that this poem was targeted to myself from myself. It reminded me that the person I use to be kept trying to present itself, but no matter how close I was to pulling that person out, they wouldn 't be found. "To Myself"

Analyzing these few lines was a task that had to be done very thoroughly. Here, it is mentioned that the speakers past, their memories, always look the same, no matter how much time passes by. Or it might even just be a reminded to the reader that time really does seem to fly passed us. What I pulled from this was that the speakers feels as if he is nothing but a shell of what he once was, fading from his own grasp. He is trying to recognize, to understand, himself again so he will no longer be a shell. And even in the next lines, "...who speak / in the words but you are not / what they say..." (13-15), the speaker stresses that it is difficult to understand someone who says they are what they are not. The speaker "...you who are not / lost when I do not find you." (15-16) This line concludes that the speaker is not able to grasp onto who he really was. But the speaker 's past self, the speaker 's memories, is something that will never be lost because it will always be a part of