all nearness pauses

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.

when faces called flowers

Catrin Welz-Stein

when faces called flowers float out of the ground

and breathing is wishing and wishing is having-

but keeping is downward and doubting and never

-it's april(yes,april;my darling)it's spring!

yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly

yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be

(yes the mountains are dancing together)

when every leaf opens without any sound

and wishing is having and having is giving-

but keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense

-alive;we're alive,dear:it's(kiss me now)spring!

now the pretty birds hover so she and so he

now the little fish quiver so you and so i

now the mountains are dancing, the mountains)

when more than was lost has been found has been found

and having is giving and giving is living-

but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing

-it's spring(all our night becomes day)o,it's spring!

all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky

all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea

all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)

e.e. cummings

I've been waiting forever to post this poem – but April's here, so the time is right. The mountains are dancing - ! That's so funny – it makes me think of Tolkien's Ents, the trees in their dance. It would be pretty glib to say that mountains don't dance, though – I mean, how do you know? The Bible says they clap their hands, so why couldn't they dance, too? Cummings says the birds and fish are frolicing and gamboling – and I think he's right. Isn't it possible that they enjoy themselves? I remember spring on the farm when the cows were let into the newly-green meadow for the first time. You've never seen such a hootenany! Tails in the air, gawky leaps and jumps, thunderingly disorganized stampedes in no particular direction... happy cows! If cows, why not birds and fish, why not mountains – why not us?

And then that line – that amazing line -

“when more than was lost has been found has been found” - I could say that over and over. More than was lost. More than was lost! Is that possible? It would take a lot of faith, to believe that. Dancing mountain faith.

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.






 

All in Green

Lucas Cranach the Elder, "The Stag Hunt of Elector Frederick the Wise"

All in Green Went My Love Riding

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.

Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.

Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before.

Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.

Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.

Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrow sang before.

Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the sheer peaks ran before.

Paler be they than daunting death
the sleek slim deer
the tall tense deer.

Four tall stags at the green mountain
the lucky hunter sang before.

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.

e.e. cummings

If this poem scrapbook has had a theme recently, it would probably be the colour green. We've had the green delerium of Spring, that First Green of Eden, blood that sings green, a green amnesia, a green thought, strong, silent greens, climbing lime-green vines,  impossible greens...such greens! Green seems to be a symbol for everything young and growing, for hope and healing. And then there's this poem - green, gold, silver, red - what do the colours signify here? It's like youth and glory and eternity and that ominous red (which somehow always portends blood and violence) all rolled up into a heart-racing chase. People say this poem is about the Greek myth of Actaeon and Diana - A is out hunting with his hounds and accidentally surprises D having a bath in a stream, whereupon she is so angered that she turns him into a stag, and his hounds tear him to pieces. Not very nice at all. I'm sure the experts are right about the poem's subject, except that it seems more like someone who loves Actaeon watching him go out on that hunt and having an inkling, a premonition even, that he will not return. The violence hasn't occurred yet, but the sense of it already is with the one who loves him. The rhythm, the colours, the assonance, the tapestry-feel of it appeals to me, even if it is sad.




 

i am a little church

Charles White, ""Move On Up a Little Higher"

i am a little church

i am a little church (no great cathedral)
far from the splendour and squalor of hurrying cities
--i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are the prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying) children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope, and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church (far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
--i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring, i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

e.e. cummings

Now here is a poem I hold in my heart. So cup-overflowing with joy, so drenched in gratitude and shining with praise. "My prayers are the prayers of earth's own clumsily striving...children" - so true, clumsily striving children - I am definitely one of those. I can hardly call this a poem - it seems to come more and more alive, until it sings - it actually sings in me. I can't even think about how it was written, it's so loud. It says so much that (for me) it drowns out the author. Like one of those rare moments when the writer becomes an open channel for beauty. "Around me surges a miracle of unceasing birth and glory and death and resurrection" - beautiful. And most beautiful of all - "i lift my diminutive spire to merciful Him Whose only now is forever: standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence" - I've mentioned before how cumming's God is the power of "Yes", and "Now". Well, Yes! and Now! and Amen, Amen, Amen. May this be the truth I stand in always.








 

this (let's remember) day

Samantha Keely Smith, "Surfacing"

this (let's remember) day died again and
again; whose golden,crimson dooms conceive

an oceaning abyss of orange dream

larger than sky times earth; a flame beyond
soul immemorial forevering am --
and as collapsing that grey mind by wave
doom disappeared,out of perhaps (who knows?)

eternity floated a blossoming


e.e. cummings

I sometimes try to puzzle cummings poems out. But most of the time I see images and a sense of something for which the poem is the closest thing to naming. Something in me says "Yes! That's it!" and scrambles to hold on to the beauty that slips out of my mind so quickly. I have to read the poem over and over to grasp it again. This one is a vivid contrast between falling, dying, collapsing, grey waves of doom, and the crimson flame of that cyclical (again and again) extinguishing - but look - something else, something eternal (not cyclical, eternal) - a bloom, something new, something born from all this, a flowering, growing, at the beginning of its strength. It seems like hope to me.  

 

105

Christian Schloe

105

cruelly, love

walk the autumn long;

the last flower in whose hair,

thy lips are cold with songs

for which is

first to wither, to pass?

shallowness of sunlight

falls and, cruelly,

across the grass

Comes the

moon

love, walk the

autumn

love, for the last

flower in the hair withers;

thy hair is acold with

dreams,

love thou art frail

- walk the longness of autumn

smile dustily to the people,

for winter

who crookedly care.

E.E. Cummings

"Thy lips are cold with songs." "Love thou art frail." I couldn't tell you what this poem means, but the phrases cling to my mind. "The last flower in the hair withers." I read it and think maybe Cummings has arranged the whole thing backwards, and what would the words look like in their proper order? But I want it the way it is. The changing of the seasons is personal in Cummings poetry, more than just outward and physical, it is an expression of inner loss and transition. And that phrase "thy hair is acold with dreams" is wonderful, it is one of those things poets do - show us beautiful mysteries. He leaves us with wonder.

Thanksgiving Day

Cofleidior Bryniau (Embrace the Hills) - Bob Guy

i thank You God for most this amazing

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 of 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 unimaginable You?

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

E.E. Cummings

 I love how Cummings turns words and phrases inside out and backwards, everything unfurls and uncurls for me, its like going the wrong way down a one-way street - everything is the same but looks and feels so different (I'm not talking about the fear the oncoming cars put in you). That phrase "lifted from the no of all nothing - human merely being" - yes, I want so much to be awake, to see "everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes"! In Cummings poems, God seems to be the great Yes. (As opposed to the "no of all nothing".) I love that. One of my very favorite poems ever is about Yes (coming soon, don't you worry). Anyway, this is the poem/prayer I hold to this Thanksgiving and every other day as well.

Little Birds

Welcome!

Holly Meade 2005

Little Birds - e.e. cummings

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it’s sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there’s never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

A favorite. That line "may my mind stroll about hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple" is perfect, and seems like the best one could aspire to. Not being "right" or smart, but willing to risk being open, to sing with a full heart, and embrace the world as it is.