Saturday, April 11, 2020

The ghost of life: whatever a sun will always sing


We have now reached the portion of National Poetry Month where I turn it over to e.e. cummings. In fact, I’m giving you two of his takes on death and love, the two things on which poets usually concentrate in times of plague, war and pestilence.

“Buffalo Bill’s”

Buffalo Bill ’s
defunct
               who used to
               ride a watersmooth-silver
                                                                  stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
                                                                                                     Jesus

he was a handsome man 
                                                  and what i want to know is
how do you like your blue-eyed boy
Mister Death


I do not believe it’s possible to have too much cummings; he succinctly captures the most expansive emotions into perfect drops of language.


“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in”

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                      i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)



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