Merton was his Novice Master while Ernesto Cardenal was at Gethsemane. They continued corresponding after Ernesto left the monastery and Merton mentions him often in his journals.
"... I never attempted to find out what the novices were writing down in the notebooks they kept in their desks. If they wished to talk about it, they were free to do so. Ernesto Cardenal was a novice at Gethsemane for two years, and I knew about his notes and poems. He spoke to me about his ideas and his meditations. I also know about his simplicity, his loyalty to his vocation, and his dedication to love. But I never imagined that some day I was going to write an introduction to the simple meditations he was writing down in those days, nor that in reading them (almost ten years later) I would find in them so much clarity, profundity, and maturity ... it is also entirely modern, bearing resemblance to the vision of Teilhard de Chardin. It is also absolutely sincere in its great simplicity, a quality that is surely on of the principal signs of the authenticity of spiritual teaching."
- from Merton's introduction to Cardenal's collection of meditations, "Abide in Love"
From Fr. Cardenal's meditation on death, "Stardust":
And the galaxy was taking the shape of a flower
the way it looks now on a starry night.
Our flesh and our bones come from other stars
and perhaps even from other galaxies,
we are universal,
and after death we will help to form other stars
and other galaxies.
We come from the stars, and to them we shall return.
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