Journal of Sacred Work

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility - e.e. cummings

The advent of email and texting causes lots of us to write in lower case letters. For the great 20th century poet e.e. cummings (above & below, 1894-1962) lower case writing, including the way he wrote his name, was a signature element of his radical style. For cummings, poetry needed to be straight forward, passionate and free from the the forms of ordinary grammar and punctuation. He wanted to provoke and startle us toward poetry as well as to paint his idea of the divine.
   At the time of his passing, cummings was the second most popular poet in America (after Robert Frost.) For me, a fine example of cummings' gifts is seen inthe power of the poem below. This passionate man had a seering ability to bring us face to face with a particularly powerful kind of presence.
   To appreciate this poem, we are asked to let go of traditional grammar rules including word placement, punctuation and spelling, so that we can experience the rhythm and flow of Love's beauty in all her glory.

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,my
steriously)her first rose

or if your 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.

How does your heart experience cummings poem at this moment in your life? 
How does it inform your caregiving experience?

-Erie Chapman