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.