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 a still peace where I can be lost, and find myself again.

She thought of God. She would become one with God.

She had always suspected herself of the mystical temperament. Now she took up contemplation, gazing at an apple until she became one with it, the apple blossom within it that had changed to a star, the seeds, little brown monks in their cells, the dark roots, the branches melting into light, the cycle of the seasons. If I can see this clearly, I can see God, she told herself. One of her best-known poems sprang from that apple she took from the silver fruit dish, wedding gift of Mr. and Mrs. Talbot Emery Towne.

She found she could practice contemplation on anything, a walnut that became a fairy shallop with a wrinkled passenger, a sweet pea, mauve wings netted in green tendrils, rimmed with celestial glory. Even hard things—alley cats, telegraph poles. She was de-