James Merrill Quotes

Lost, is it, buried? One more missing piece?

But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation
And every bit of us is lost in it
(Or found - I wander through the ruin of S
Now and then, wondering at the peacefulness)
And in that loss a self-effacing tree,
Color of context, imperceptibly
Rustling with its angel, turns the waste
To shade and fiber, milk and memory.

Arthur Young's Reflexive Universe - fascinating but too schematic to fit into my scheme. The most I could hope for was a sense of the vocabulary and some possible images.

But those two plays left me on fresh terms with language. I didn't always have to speak in my own voice.

He puts his right hand lightly on the cup, I put my left, leaving the right free to transcribe, and away we go. We get, oh, 500 to 600 words an hour. Better than gasoline.

The sky is realest: the sky cannot
Be touched and in the mirror it cannot
Be touched. He is enchanted. The rare azur
Is flawless; happily blurred blue is no whit
Less exquisite than blue unblurred. And what
He misses he would never know was there.

I'd like to think the scientists need us - but do they? Did Newton need Blake?

Let the mind be, along with countless other things, a landing strip for sacred visitations.

Nor do I try to keep a garden, only
An avocado in a glass of water --
Roots pallid, gemmed with air. And later,

When the small gilt leaves have grown
Fleshy and green, I let them die, yes, yes,
And start another. I am earth's no less.

The day is breaking someone else's heart.

The simplest science book is over my head.

Knowing some Greek helped defuse forbidding words - not that I counted much on using them. You'll find only trace elements of this language in the poem.

The eggshell of appearance split.

And, as I have said, it's made me think twice about the imagination. If the spirits aren't external, how astonishing the mediums become! Victor Hugo said of his voices that they were like his own mental powers multiplied by five.