open your heart

Esa Riippa

open your heart:

i'll give you a treasure

of tiniest world

a piece of forever with

summitless younger than

angels are mountains

rivery forests

towerful towns(queen

poet king float

sprout heroes of moonstar

flutter to and

swim blossoms of person)through

musical shadows while hunted

by daemons

seethe luminous

leopards(on wingfeet of thingfear)

come ships go

snowily sailing

perfect silence.

Absolute ocean

e.e. cummings

It's hard to say anything after that. Cummings is such a genius of expansion. This poem encompasses – well, the world – and forever. All the biggest things. And the way he goes so big and wild in such a small number of words it's the perfect reflection of what he intends to say – everything can be within a tiny thing. There are largenesses within infinitesimals. We have such heights to go to! We have such superlatives to experience. If, and this is the beautiful kicker, if we can open our hearts. Open our hearts -!?? What? How? Oh he does that – he did it in "Little Birds" too – do this with your heart, do that. Not easy, E.E.



Well, if you're going to offer the biggest things, it seems only right that you ask for the hardest things.But my goodness, that “Absolute ocean”, that's superb.

Love is a Place

William B. Hoyt

love is a place

 
love is a place

& through this place of 

love move

(with brightness of peace)

all places

yes is a world

& in this world of 

yes live

(skilfully curled)

all worlds

e.e. cummings

I spent a good amount of time hunting down an image for this. The first that came to mind was one I already used for “Let Love Go On”, and I considered using it again – why not? If the image happens to suit two (or more) poems, why hesitate using it for both? (A happy thought in itself, that a painting fits many poems, or vice versa. I could do a series of poems like that here one day.)  But, the poem ! As far as love poems go, this is one of the greatest, in my opinion.  Is there a more clear and beautiful way to speak of the universality of love, and of love as the Great Positive, the all-encompasser, the Great Embrace, the birthplace of life, the Source, the Fullness, the Everywhere-Home, the Center of Being/Belonging…and on and on and on? That line, “in this world of yes live (skilfully curled) all worlds” is like saying “everything good is indeed possible!”  If “love” and “yes” are linked – well! What do you make of that?!! (What does that mean for the world? For life? For you and me?) Cummings repeats this theme throughout his poetry, and it gets me every time.He does it in "i thank you God for most this amazing", and although he doesn't use the word "Yes" in "i am a little church" the sense of the Great Positive, of things coming right, is certainly there - "around me surges a miracle of unceasing/ birth and glory and death and resurrection:/ over my sleeping self float flaming symbols/  of hope". I've mentioned before how I was once told that hate and pain are more difficult to write about than love, and that in time I came to see that the opposite is true, that love is far more exacting, far far more arduous to write well about, having been so maligned and misrepresented, spun and perverted, that we hardly recognize it, nevermind speak with truth or accuracy in regard to it. So I cannot say enough in appreciation for what e.e. cummings does here. This is what I would call and Open Door poem, a poem that leads to so many possibilities, so many ideas - or a Tree of Life poem, with a thousand limbs and branches and leaves. Not to mention, it reminds me of this verse -

"For all the promises of God in Him {Jesus} are Yes and in Him, Amen, to the glory of God through us." 2 Corinthians 1:20.  

 

in time of daffodils

Vincent van Gogh

in time of daffodils

in time of daffodils (who know

the goal of living is to grow)

forgetting why, remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim

the aim of waking is to dream,

remember so (forgetting seem)

in time of roses (who amaze

our now and here with paradise)

forgetting if, remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond

whatever mind may comprehend,

remember seek (forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be

(when time from time shall set us free)

forgetting me, remember me

e.e. cummings

So flowers "know/proclaim/amaze" in their time, in their cycle and season. They do all these things, according to cummings, to show us that living isn't about coming to the surface or finding the sharp edges, but going down deeper and finding a redemptive and incomprehensible fullness of being that, if we free ourselves into the mystery of - we will know to be both a kind of self-remembering and forgetting - in which the edges between ourselves and other beings fade. The time of daffodils, lilacs, and roses becomes our time as we begin (again) to know the goal of living, "Forgetting if, remembering yes." Or, at least, that's how I read it...