little you-i

e.e. cummings wasn't meant to be confined to the page. He was meant to be read out loud. His words are a party of sounds, alliterations and assonances, rhymes and off-rhymes, swung into a rhythmic celebration. It's beautiful. "87" is particularly delightful to hear. It may feel a little silly reading out loud to yourself, but go ahead and give it a shot. I particularly like the nose-dive at the end which feels like it doesn't fit at all, which is precisely why it works. I won't even attempt to guess at it's meaning. Poetry doesn't have to mean. It can just be. No need to beat a symbolic meaning out of it, just enjoy the sounds of the words as they roll easily off the tongue.

87
e.e. cummings

o by the by
has anybody seen
little you-i
who stood on a green
hill and threw
his wish at blue

with a swoop and a dart
out flew his wish
(it dived like a fish
but it climbed like a dream)
throbbing like a heart
singing like a flame

blue took it my
far beyond far
and high beyond high
bluer took it your
but bluest took it our
away beyond where

what a wonderful thing
is the end of a string
(murmurs little you-i
as the hill becomes nil)
and will somebody tell
me why people let go

e.e. cummings the poet was also a playwright. He said of one very unorthodox play:

"Relax and give the play a chance to strut its stuff—relax, stop wondering what it is all 'about'—like many strange and familiar things, Life included, this play isn't 'about,' it simply is. . . . Don't try to enjoy it, let it try to enjoy you. DON'T TRY TO UNDERSTAND IT, LET IT TRY TO UNDERSTAND YOU."

I think the same statement can apply to a great deal of poetry. Don't overthink the beautiful and unfamiliar or try to conform it to your view of life. Just let it exist in it's own quirkiness.

i thank You God for most this amazing

I can't have a poetry website without having e.e. cummings on it. This is a most appropriate poem for a Sunday. The title alone should be enough. My favorite stanza is the third. I don't comprehend it, but that's part of what makes it beautiful. I comprehend so little of the ways of God and yet I find it all so breathtaking.

i thank You God for most this amazing
e.e. cummings

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)

And one more poem to wrap up an ode to the greatness of God... Though I will only post my favorite, check out "The Windhover" and "God's Grandeur" by Hopkins as well. Just read it aloud. Don't try to comprehend it. Just let yourself be immersed by the richness of his words

Pied Beauty
Gerard Manley Hopkins

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;	5
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:	10
Praise him.

So frustrating! The original format of Hopkins poem is not aligned to the left like this. He uses spacing to create a more beautiful poem. But tragically the blogsite will NOT let me keep it indented (any suggestions?), so you'll just have to Google this to see it as it should be.

Any suggestions of similar poems or opinions of posted poems?