if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have
one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor
a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but
it will be a heaven of blackred roses
my father will be(deep like a rose
tall like a rose)
standing near my
(swaying over her
silent)
with eyes which are really petals and see
nothing with the face of a poet really which
is a flower and not a face with
hands
which whisper
This is my beloved my
(suddenly in sunlight
he will bow,
& the whole garden will bow)
a
clown's smirk in the skull of a baboon
(where once good lips stalked or eyes firmly stirred)
my mirror gives me, on this afternoon;
i am a shape that can but eat and turd
ere with the dirt death shall him vastly gird,
a coward waiting clumsily to cease
whom every perfect thing meanwhile doth miss;
a hand's impression in an empty glove,
a soon forgotten tune,a house for lease.
I have never loved you dear as now i love
behold
this fool who,in the month
of June,
having of certain stars and planets heard,
rose very slowly in a tight balloon
until the smallening world became absurd;
him did an archer spy (whose aim had erred
never) and by that little trick or this
he shot the aeronaut down,into the abyss
-and wonderfully i fell through the green groove
of twilight,striking into many a piece.
I have never loved you dear as now i love
god's
terrible face,brighter than a spoon,
collects the image of one fatal word;
so that my life (which liked the sun and the moon)
resembles something that has not occurred:
i am a birdcage without any bird,
a collar looking for a dog,a kiss
without lips;a prayer lacking any knees
but something beats within my shirt to prove
he is undead who,living,noone is.
I have never loved you dear as now i love.
Hell
(by most humble me which shall increase)
open thy fire! for i have had some bliss
of one small lady upon earth above;
to whom i cry,remembering
her face,
i have never loved you dear as now i love
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if you wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that
closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
but if
a living dance upon dead minds
why, it is love;but at the earliest spear
of sun perfectly should disappear
moon's utmost magic, or stones speak or one
name control more splendor than
our merely universe, love's also there:
and being here imprisoned, tortured here
love everywhere exploding maims and blinds
(but surely does not forget, perish,sleep
cannot be photographed, measured; disdains
the trivial labelling of punctual brains. . .
-Who wields a poem huger than the grave?
from only Whom shall time no refuge keep
though all the weird worlds must be opened?
)Love
here's to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap
and to your (in my arms flowering so new)
self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain
and here's to silent certainly mountains; and to
a disappearing poet of always, snow
and to morning; and to morning's beautiful friend
twilight (and a first dream called ocean) and
let must or if be damned with whomever's afraid
down with ought with because with every brain
which thinks it thinks, nor dares to feel (but up
with joy; and up with laughing and drunkenness)
here's to one undiscoverable guess
of whose mad skill each world of blood is made
(whose fatal songs are moving in the moon
love is the very only god
who spoke this earth so glad and big
even a thing all small and sad
man, may his mighty briefness dig
for love beginning means return
seas who could sing so deep and strong
one queerying wave will whitely yearn
from each last shore and home come young
so truly perfectly the skies
by merciful love whispered were,
completes its brightness with your eyes
any illimitable star
what freedom's not some under's mere above
but breathing yes which fear will never no?
measureless our pure living complete love
whose doom is beauty and its fate to grow
shall hate confound the wise? doubt blind the brave?
does mask wear face? have
singings gone to say?
here youngest selves yet younger selves conceive
here's music's music and the day of day
are worlds collapsing? any was a glove
but i'm and you are actual either hand
is when for sale? forever is to give
and on forever's very now we stand
nor a first rose explodes but shall increase
whole truthful infinite immediate us
what if a much of a which of a wind
gives the truth to summer's lie;
bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun
and yanks immortal stars awry? Blow king to beggar and queen to seem
(blow friend to fiend: blow space to time)
-when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,
the single secret will still be man
what if a keen of a lean wind flays
screaming hills with sleet and snow:
strangles valleys by ropes of thing
and stifles forests in white ago?
Blow hope to terror: blow seeing to blind
(blow pity to envy and soul to mind)
-whose hearts are mountains, roots are trees,
it's they shall cry hello to the spring
what if a dawn of a doom of a dream
bites this universe in two,
peels forever out of his grave
and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?
Blow soon to never and never to twice
(blow life to isn't:blow death to was)
-all nothing's only our hugest home;
the most who die,the more we live
if a cheerfulest Elephantangelchild
should sit
(holding a red candle over his head
by a finger of trunk, and singing out of a red
book) on a proud round cloud in a white high night
where his heartlike ears have flown adorable him
self tail and all (and his tail's red christmas bow)
-and if,when we meet again, little he (having flown
even higher) is sunning his penguinsoul in the glow
of a joy which wasn't and isn't and won't be words
while possibly not (at a guess) quite half way down
to the earth are leapandswooping tinily
birds
whose magical gaiety makes your beautiful name-
i feel that (false
and true are merely to know)
Love only has ever been, is, and will ever be, So
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)
now all the fingers of this tree(darling)have
hands, and all the hands have people; and
more each particular person is(my love)
alive than every world can understand
and now you are and i am now and we're
a mystery which will never happen again,
a miracle which has never happened before-
and shining this our now must come to then
our then shall be some darkness during which
fingers are without hands; and i have no
you: and all trees are(any more than each
leafless)its silent in forevering snow
-but
never fear(my own, my beautiful
my blossoming)for also then's until
luminous tendril of
celestial wish
(whying diminutive bright
deathlessness
to these my not themselves believing eyes
adventuring,enormous nowhere from)
querying affirmation; virginal
immediacy of precision: more
and perfectly more most etereal
silence through twilight's mystery made flesh-
dreamslender exquisite white firstful flame
-new
moon! as(by the miracle of your
sweet innocence refuted)clumsy some
dull cowardice called a world vanishes,
teach disappearing also me the keen
illimitable secret of begin
the hours rise up putting off stars and it is
dawn
into the street of the sky light walks scattering poems
on earth a candle is
extinguished
the city
wakes
with a song upon her
mouth having death in her eyes
and it is dawn
the world
goes forth to murder dreams....
i see in the street where strong
men are digging bread
and i see the brutal faces of
people contented hideous hopeless cruel happy
and it is day,
in the mirror
i see a frail
man dreaming
dreams
dreams in the mirror
and it
is dusk
on earth
a candle is lighted
and it is dark.
the people are in their houses
the frail man is in his bed
the city
sleeps with death upon her mouth having a song in her eyes
the hours descend,
putting on stars....
in the street of the sky night walks scattering poems
e.e.cummings