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Dennis Daly was born in Salem Massachusetts. He graduated from Boston College with a B.S. degree and earned an M.A. degree in English Literature at Northeastern University. He has twice visited Thomas Merton’s hermitage on the grounds of the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Daly has published eleven books of poetry and poetic translations. Please visit his blog here: dennisfdaly.blogspot.com.

Dennis Daly

Lines Written for Thomas Merton

Joining a community of silence
Does not a hermit make. Perish the thought.
They built him a hermitage for penance
Or pain. His blocks of solitude hardbought.

Much more than muteness or dental drill,
He saw Paradise in tangible ways,
Until 4th and Walnut in Louisville,
Where humanity shines when Merton prays.

Friendship by letter came naturally—
Pasternak, Pope John, and Dorothy Day.
His brother’s wartime death certainly key.
His poetry once said, would not unsay.

Over monastic wall the prodigal
Escaped for liquor and a pack of smokes.
His conversation turned to conjugal,
Outraging an abbot and other folks.

Religion’s next future he spoke about.
They found him under an electric fan.
No autopsy needed. There was some doubt:
Heart attack or CIA bogeyman.

— Dennis Daly

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