Truth be told, I'm not usually a huge fan of poetry. So I was surprised when I tripped over a WSJ review of a new biography of poet James Merrill (who I must admit I never had heard of before) and found both the man and his work fascinating. He produced a fairly big output, the most famous work being "The Changing Light at Sandover", a 17,000-line poem that evolved out of Ouija board sessions, of all things. I'll just leave a pic of the poet (he was a pretty good-looking guy, methinks) and a few lines from a later work, "Losing the Marbles" for your reading pleasure
What are the Seven Wonders now? A pile
Of wave-washed pebbles. Topless women smile,
Picking the smoothest, rose-flawed white or black,
Which taste of sunlight on moon-rusted swords,
To use as men upon their checkerboards.
After the endless jokes, this balmy winter
Around the pool, about the missing marbles,
What was more natural than for my birthday
To get -from the friend whose kiss that morning woke me-
A pregnantly clicking pouch of targets and strikers,
Aggies and rainbows, the opaque chalk-red ones,
Clear ones with DNA-like wisps inside,
Others like polar tempests vitrified...
These I've embedded at random in the deck slats
Around the pool. (The pool! -compact, blue, dancing,
Lit-from-beneath oubliette.) By night their sparkle
Repeats the garden lights, or moon- or starlight,
Tinily underfoot, as though the very
Here and now were becoming a kind of heaven
To sit in, talking, largely mindless of
The risen, cloudy brilliances above.