i carry your heart with me

One of my favorite all-time poets is ee cummings. It's almost ironic that I would love him so much, as he used no capitalization and barely any punctuation in his writing, whereas I am the (self-proclaimed) Queen-Bee of Grammar. But love him I do, and I wanted to share three of my favorite poems of his with you. Personally, I feel they are some of the most romantic poems ever written. Bar none.

[And Scriptor, if you're reading this, where does the expression "bar none" come from???]

"i carry your heart with me(i carry it in"

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

~

"somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond" *

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 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

~

"it may not always be so;and i say"

it may not always be so;and i say
that if your lips,which i have loved,should touch
another's,and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart,as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know,or such
great writhing words as,uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be,i say if this should be-
you of my heart,send me a little word;
that i may go unto him,and take his hands,
saying,Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face,and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

*A note about the second poem - it appeared as part of the wedding vows in an episode of the original Beverly Hills 90210. (I think) it was when Kelly and Brandon were getting married. (Or was it Dylan?!) Reader, I just about cried, and not from happiness, when I saw this. Because that was always my most favorite wish -- to have my future groom recite it as part of our wedding vows, and then friggin' 90210 had to go and ruin it for me. Woe.