The process of creation in any creative mind - artist, poet, composer or even, I believe, great scientist - is beautifully expressed in this 1962 poem by James Merrill. (See also: everypainterpaintshimself/blog/as_in_painting_so_is_poetry) A Vision of the Garden One winter morning as a child Upon the windowpanes thin frost I drew Forehead and eyes and mouth the clear and mild Features of nobody I knew And then abstracted looking through This or that wet transparent line Beyond beheld a winter garden so Heavy with snow its hedge of pine And sun so brilliant on the snow I breathed my pleasure out onto the chill pane Only to see its angel fade in mist. I was a child, I did not know That what I longed for would resist Neither what cold lines should my finger trace On colder grounds before I found anew In yours the features of that face Whose words whose looks alone undo Such frosts I lay me down in love in fear At how they melt become a blossoming pear Joy outstretched in our bodies place. — James Merrill, Water Street (1962) included in From the First Nine: Poems 1946-1976, Atheneum, New York, 1982, p. 85 everypainterpaintshimself/blog/as_in_painting_so_is_poetry
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 11:07:10 +0000