Not long ago--a couple of weeks?--I posted here about how I'd decided to memorize a LONG poem by E. E. Cummings, a poem that Joyce, via Facebook (!), introduced to me--and to her many "friends"--on Father's Day.
It's seventeen quatrains long. (See entire text below.)
I had never read it before--never heard of it before. But it is (duh!) about fathers--about the father of the speaker of the poem. And it's a gorgeous piece of work, one whose meanings gradually have emerged (and are continuing to emerge) the more time I spend with it.
It took me about a month of effort to shoehorn it into my memory, and just this morning I recited it for Joyce (a couple of stumbles, errors), but I got through it--and earned a kiss (always worth memorizing a poem!).
Edward Estlin Cummings. 1894-1962. (He died in my first freshman term at Hiram College.)
A few years ago (2014), I reviewed for the Cleveland Plain Dealer Susan Cheever's biography whose image you see below. And I'd also read the one you see at the top of the page (2004).
Rebecca was driving, but her visibility was impaired. Edward finally persuaded Rebecca to stop so that he could clear the windshield. He then got back in the car and Rebecca drove on. "Some minutes later," according to Cummings, "a locomotive cut the car in half (Sawyer-Laucanno, 305).
Edward died instantly; Rebecca survived.
So ... given those circumstances, the poem has an entirely new resonance. Even if the speaker of the poem is not in every sense E. E. Cummings, the affection for the father pulsates with loss in virtually every line.
The poem--named only "34" in Cummings' 1940 collection, 50 Poems--appears in a number of places, including Complete Poems: 1904-1962 (Liveright, 1983), where I found an error when I was making sure that the online text was accurate (I've been burned a couple of times by assuming the online version is!). The ninth stanza, in the book, is missing its ultimate line: His pity was as green as grain.
Anyway, I know it now--and I also know that I will have to rehearse it--silently silently!--pretty much every day so that it doesn't just blow away, like a yard decoration--or a life--in a blizzard.
And--again--I thank Joyce for showing me the poem. So many wonders of the world have first come to me on her breath, in her hands.
34
my father moved
through dooms of love
through sames of am
through haves of give,
singing each morning
out of each night
my father moved
through depths of height
this motionless
forgetful where
turned at his glance
to shining here;
that if (so timid air
is firm)
under his eyes would
stir and squirm
newly as from unburied
which
floats the first who,
his april touch
drove sleeping selves
to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their
ghostly roots
and should some why
completely weep
my father’s fingers
brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest
voice might cry
for he could feel the
mountains grow.
Lifting the valleys of
the sea
my father moved
through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead
called the moon
singing desire into
begin
joy was his song and
joy so pure
a heart of star by him
could steer
and pure so now and
now so yes
the wrists of twilight
would rejoice
keen as midsummer’s
keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun
will stand,
so strictly (over
utmost him
so hugely) stood my
father’s dream
his flesh was flesh
his blood was blood:
no hungry man but
wished him food;
no cripple wouldn’t
creep one mile
uphill to only see him
smile.
Scorning the Pomp of
must and shall
my father moved
through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right
as rain
his pity was as green
as grain
septembering arms of
year extend
less humbly wealth to
foe and friend
than he to foolish and
to wise
offered immeasurable
is
proudly and (by
octobering flame
beckoned) as earth
will downward climb,
so naked for immortal
work
his shoulders marched
against the dark
his sorrow was as true
as bread:
no liar looked him in
the head;
if every friend became
his foe
he’d laugh and build a
world with snow.
My father moved
through theys of we,
singing each new leaf
out of each tree
(and every child was
sure that spring
danced when she heard
my father sing)
then let men kill
which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be
mud and mire,
scheming imagine,
passion willed,
freedom a drug that’s
bought and sold
giving to steal and
cruel kind,
a heart to fear, to
doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of
same,
conform the pinnacle
of am
though dull were all
we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly
things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb
death
all we inherit, all
bequeath
and nothing quite so
least as truth
—i say though hate
were why men breathe—
because my Father
lived his soul
love is the whole and
more than all
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