let the mind be a landing strip for sacred visitations

“The day is breaking someone else's heart.”
― James Merrill

“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.”
― James Merrill, Collected Poems

“Freedom to be oneself is all very well; the greater freedom is not to be oneself.”
― James Merrill, A Different Person: A Memoir

“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.”
― James Merrill

“Beneath my incredulity
All at once is flowing
Joy, the flash of the unbaited hook --
Yes, yes, it fits, it's right, it had to be!
Intuition weightless and ongoing
Like stanzas in a book
Or golden scales in the melodic brook --”
― James Merrill, Scripts For The Pageant

“Let the mind be, along with countless other things, a landing strip for sacred visitations.”
― James Merrill, A Different Person: A Memoir

“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.”
― James Merrill, Collected Poems

“The eggshell of appearance split.”
― James Merrill