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)