Mel Merrill

Mel Merrill Poems

Mel Merrill Biography

My interest in poetry piqued while I was in college. While at California Lutheran University, where I took my BA in English Literature with a Creative Writing emphasis, I won the coveted Mark Van Doren Memorial Poetry Prize three consecutive years. This was a proud achievement, as no one has equaled it either before, or since. After college I earned a Teaching Credential and went on to teach high school English (including poetry) . I am a distant cousin of Emily Dickinson- my favorite poet- and I continue to study the greats, and to publish my poems wherever I can. Poems are the window to my soul!)

The Best Poem Of Mel Merrill

Night

The periwinkle petals closed
As daylight turned to dark-
And nighttime fell like dampened silk
To hush the meadowlark.

And the Talmud, and the holy words,
The violins and song-
Fell silent in the midst of dark,
Seeming out-of-place, or wrong.

And faith became a memory
Like love's first gentle kiss-
The most dear off all possessions
Was the one most sorely missed.

For God had been their guiding light,
As the rituals, and wine-
But the Cantor could not find a note...
T was the night of '39.

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