A Mailbox Full of Valentines for Grace

Thomas Merton’s poem Grace’s House was frequently mentioned in Gil Bailie’s talks from the 1980’s and 90’s. I offer an example from an excerpt of Gil’s series on W. H. Auden’s New Year Letter below. I encourage those coming by this site to take the time to look up Merton’s beautiful short poem which can be found in The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton (New Directions Paperbook) (Copyright prevents its being presented here in full.)

There were two lines from the poem that have stayed with me over the years:

‘there is no road to Grace’s house’

and

      ‘Mailbox number 5 is full of Valentines for Grace’

In the poem Merton says there is a river that runs between our world and Grace’s, a river of “uncrossed Crystal water between our ignorance and her truth”.

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Excerpt from Gil’s presentation on WH Auden’s New Year Letter…