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| Victor Delhez |
dante, i said
the haze has lifted
everything is coming
into focus
i can't say how
but this tower overlooks
scenes of my life
i recognize
these passages
as leaves from my life
how different they look
when seen from above
when seen from this perspective
e.p.
Perspective, retrospective - hindsight, insight -
if only I had a vantage point from which there was clarity!
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| Maxfield Parrish |
all nearness pauses, while a star can grow
all distance breathes a final dream of bells;
perfectly outlined against afterglow
are all amazing and the peaceful hills
(not where not here but neither’s blue most both)
and history immeasurably is
wealthier by a single sweet day’s death:
as not imagined secrecies comprise
goldenly huge whole the upfloating moon.
Times a strange fellow;
more he gives than takes
(and he takes all)nor any marvel finds
quite disappearance but some keener makes
losing, gaining
—love! if a world ends
more than all worlds begin to(see?) begin
e.e. cummings
Cummings' poems are so compact, how does a person begin to take them in? He sets out the opposites - "nearness", "farness" and then melds them together, he divides and then makes whole. He says, " not this, not that, but both", he is an "All" poet, a grand swirler and mixer of Everythings. And though stammered and ungrammered, utterly clear and true.
That golden line:
"...and history immeasurably is
sweeter by a single sweet day's death"
I mean, who makes you think of the fine details of a minute within the breadth of all time quite as instantaneously as this?
Or:
"Time's a strange fellow;
More he gives than takes."
The briefest summation of the greatest complication!
I sit back and chew, just chew on his words.
