16 April 2008

Oh, and Thinking of Spring Poetry...

what about this amazing piece by 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 allnothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

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

11 comments:

km said...

Have you heard Eric Whitacre's choral setting of this?

J.G.F. said...

Hey... I remember this! I can't remember who set the choral arrangement that we used back in 82. Was it Whitacre?

Rev. James Leistico said...

as far as i knew, e.e. cummings never capitalized anything. of course, my knowledge of his poetry is from a public high school english lit course. interesting where he did use the capitals. do you know if his was the Triune God?

dgkirch said...

Not according to at least one commentator:

"His basic religious feelings were in tune with his Unitarian upbringing. His concept of God was that of a comprehensive Oneness together with a sense of the presence of this Oneness in nature. In Xaipe he expressed this belief most clearly in a sonnet that combined both prayer and an awareness of Divinity in the natural world:

I thank You God for most this amazing day..."

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/cummings.html

William Weedon said...

Hey, John, wasn't it by Lloyd Pfautsch?

William Weedon said...

Karl,

Not familiar with that one!

Anonymous said...

Here are two performances of Whitacre's arrangement of the poem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYSCuphIEc0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX6R2ZO-EOQ&feature=related

Karl H.

Fr. Jon M. Ellingworth said...

We have a very talented composer / pianist friend of the congregation who wrote a lovely setting for this poem. I had the honor of singing it in church Easter 2007, with an encore for my Mother's 70th birthday.

dgkirch said...

Truly a universally lovely poem. Even Herb Hoefer and the Muslims could recite/sing it. :-)

J.G.F. said...

Ah, yes, William. It was Lloyd Pfautsch

Cheryl said...

Pastor, thanks for sharing this! I love e. e. cummings but did not know this poem. I'm going to use it with my homeschool literature students!