That's Just How It Is

“In life, there are no perfect affections” – James Merrill

Born in March, 1926, Merrill was primarily a poet but also wrote essays, fiction and plays during his distinguished writing career. 

Beginning with the prestigious Glascock Prize, awarded for The Black Swan when he was an undergraduate, Merrill won every major  poetry award in the United States, including the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Divine Comedies. He twice won the National Book Award – for Nights and Days and for Mirabell: Books of Number – and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

For Saturday’s Poem, here is Merrill’s,

The Candid Decorator

I thought I would do over
All of it. I was tired
Of scars and stains, of bleared
Panes, tinge of the liver.
The fuchsia in the center
Looked positively weird
I felt it—dry as paper.
I called a decorator.
In next to no time such
A nice young man appeared.
What had I in mind?
Oh, lots and lots of things—
Fresh colors, pinks and whites
That one would want to touch;
The windows redesigned;
The plant thrown out in favor,
Say, of a small tree,
An orange or a pear . . .
He listened dreamily.
Combing his golden hair
He measured with one glance
The distance I had come
To reach this point. And then
He put away his comb

He said: “Extravagance!
Suppose it could be done.
You’d have to give me carte
Blanche and an untold sum.
But to be frank, my dear,
Living here quite alone
(Oh I have seen it, true,
But me you needn’t fear)
You’ve one thing to the good:
While not exactly smart,
Your wee place, on the whole
It couldn’t be more ‘you.’
Still, if you like—” I could
Not speak. He had seen my soul,
Had said what I dreaded to hear.
Ending the interview
I rose, blindly. I swept
To show him to the door,
And knelt, when he had left,
By my Grand Rapids chair,
And wept until I laughed
And laughed until I wept.

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