Last night, I came across two short James Merrill poems I wanted to post here. The first is about (among other things) a storm in April, which is superficially timely. The second struck me, because I was trying to write a poem about a moment like this, but of course, Merrill does it more neatly and easily.
Another April
The panes flash, tremble with your ghostly passage
Through them, an x-ray sheerness billowing, and I have risen
But cannot speak, remembering only that one was meant
To rise and not to speak. Young storm, this house is yours.
Let your eye darken, your rain come, the candle reeling
Deep in what still reflects control itself and me.
Daybreak's great gray rust-veined irises humble and proud
Along your path will have laid their foreheads in the dust.
After the Ball
Clasping her magic
Changemaking taffeta
(Old rose to young spinach
And back) I'd taken
Such steps in dream logic
That the Turnstile at Greenwich
Chimed with laughter--
My subway token.
from Collected Poems by James Merrill. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
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