Poem of the Day

We’ve had nearly a solid week of “warm” weather (ie: over freezing) and a ton of snow has melted (as evidenced by the raging rivers in the drainage ditches and monstrous lakes in front yards). I’m not naive enough to think we won’t get another snowstorm, but I can pretend it’s spring when it actually feels like spring. A friend suggested this poem a while ago and it seems appropriate this week.

Spring is like a perhaps hand
By e e cummings

           III

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

I am on a mission to find a wedding poem.

i carry your heart with me
By e e cummings

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 the 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)

I heard cummings read this poem on Poetry on Record. I’m not sure I think that his reading shed more light on the poem and I’m sorry for that because he’s the kind of poet who makes me wonder about his life and motivation. At any rate, I think this poem is interesting, whether read aloud or not.

as freedom is a breakfastfood
By e e cummings

as freedom is a breakfastfood
or truth can live with right and wrong
or molehills are from mountains made
—long enough and just so long
will being pay the rent of seem
and genius please the talentgang
and water most encourage flame

as hatracks into peachtrees grow
or hopes dance best on bald men’s hair
and every finger is a toe
and any courage is a fear
—long enough and just so long
will the impure think all things pure
and hornets wail by children stung

or as the seeing are the blind
and robins never welcome spring
nor flatfolk prove their world is round
nor dingsters die at break of dong
and common’s rare and millstones float
—long enough and just so long
tomorrow will not be too late

worms are the words by joy’s the voice
down shall go which and up come who
breasts will be breasts thighs will be thighs
deeds cannot dream what dreams can do
—time is a tree(this life one leaf)
but love is the sky and i am for you
just so long and long enough

This one was sent to me by a poetry buddy and I think it’s absolutely lovely.

somewhere i have never travelled
By e e cummings

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Somehow I can’t help but think of Yul Brynner saying et cetera in The King and I.

my sweet old etcetera
By e e cummings

my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent

war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting

for,
my sister

isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds)of socks not to
mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers

etcetera wristers etcetera,my

mother hoped that

i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my

self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et
cetera
(dreaming,
et
  cetera,of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera)

Current Tea: captivating caramel (black tea with caramel flavoring)

As suggested by a reader, here’s one from e e cummings.

P.S. I’m going out of town so the PotD may or may not appear for the next week, depending on circumstances.

if i love You
By e e cummings

if i love You
(thickness means
worlds inhabited by roamingly
stern bright faeries

if you love
me) distance is mind carefully
luminous with innumerable gnomes
Of complete dream

if we love each (shyly)
other, what clouds do or Silently
Flowers resembles beauty
less than our breathing

My file of poems is getting perilously low, but I found this one on americanpoems.com and I really like it!

if you like my poems let them
By e e cummings

if you like my poems let them
walk in the evening,a little behind you

then people will say
“Along this road i saw a princess pass
on her way to meet her lover(it was
toward nightfall)with tall and ignorant servants.”

One more from American Gods…

in Just—
By e e cummings

in Just—
spring     when the world is mud—
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles     far     and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far     and     wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
  spring
  and
       the
            goat-footed
balloonMan     whistles
far
and
wee

I’m going out of town for the weekend, so no poem tomorrow. I’m actually in a good mood, but I realized that most of my poems are downers. I snagged this one from Chris a while ago, though, so here you go.

i thank You God for most this amazing day
By e e cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Since a friend just got a book of poetry by e e cummings, I thought I’d find a poem by him to post.

all which isn’t singing is mere talking
by e e cummings

all which isn’t singing is mere talking

and all talking’s talking to oneself
(whether that oneself be sought or seeking
master or disciple sheep or wolf)

gush to it as diety or devil
-toss in sobs and reasons threats and smiles
name it cruel fair or blessed evil-
it is you (ne i)nobody else

drive dumb mankind dizzy with haranguing
-you are deafened every mother’s son-
all is merely talk which isn’t singing
and all talking’s to oneself alone

but the very song of(as mountains
feel and lovers)singing is silence