The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

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Author QuotedErnesto Cardenal
Title QuotedGethsemani, Ky
Date (Year/Month/Day)1960/06/12
Imprint[S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1960
QuotationErnesto Cardenal's book of poems about Gethsemani arrived. Small, bare, but warm poems, austere annotations, like Haiku, one of the most elementally simple being the one about a dog barking behind this wood here and another replying behind that other wood further away. His allusions to Nicaragua, to the train by the lake of Managua, to the steamboat Victoria that sank-give them a special quality. But they do not need this reference to be already very personal, pure and sacred. The religious ones are often the most simple and direct of all. Simplicity = Sacredness. These poems prove the essential and deep connection.
Quotation SourceTurning Toward the World: The Pivotal Years. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 4, 1960-1963.; Edited by Victor A. Kramer. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1996, p. 10
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