when unto nights of autumn

Konstantin Kalynovych

when unto nights of autumn do complain

earth's ghastlier trees by whom Time measured is

when frost to dance maketh the sagest pane

of littler huts with peerless fantasies

or the unlovely longness of the year

droops with things dead athwart the narrowing hours

and hope (by cold espoused unto fear)

in dreadful corners hideously cowers -

i do excuse me, love, to Death and Time

storms and rough cold, winds menace and leaf's grieving:

from the impressed fingers of sublime

Memory, of that loveliness receiving

the image my proud heart cherished as fair.

(The child-head poised with the serious hair)

e.e. cummings

Cummings is funny, genuinely funny. I smile through that first stanza every time. Edward Estlin, were you like this in real time too? Did you wear your shirts inside-out and backwards, did you eat dessert for breakfast, did you ask your girlfriend to unsingle you?! You maddening, maddening  man. And yet, you were right. You are still right. This is how I experience life. Inside-out, backwards, frustratingly unreasonably difficult for no apparent reason, and at the same time heart-piercingly sweet. Which is all just to say that the meaning is not just in the things (words), but in the rhythm and order. Cummings wanted to stop us, make our brains stutter and hear things we had forgotten how to hear. One day I'll put a poem of his in "order", and show you how it pales and "droops with things dead" by comparison.