i go to this window
just as day dissolves
when it is twilight(and
looking up in fear
i see the new moon
thinner than a hair)
making me feel
how myself has been coarse and dull
compared with you, silently who are
and cling
to my mind always
But now she sharpens and becomes crisper
until i smile with knowing
-and all about
herself
the sprouting largest final air
plunges
inward with hurled
downward thousands of enormous dreams
I love that cummings’ poetry can be read simply for a feeling.
I am sure that a thousand different readings of this poem could be presented; a thousand interpretations of the “you” and the “her” and the “me.” cummings could be mourning a lover lost (just at the setting of the metaphorical “sun” on the relationship) to the “you, silently who are,” a lover who he “smile[s] with knowing,” who in her “largest final air” has hurled all his dreams downward.
Perhaps he is reveling in a current love, enjoying pondering her clingy quality in the soft twilight.
The others spoken of in the poem could just as easily be friends–friends more successful, friends more beautiful, friends who have left him in the cold.
But I enjoy simply reading the poem for its overall feeling. Many a time have I stared out a window as the sun has just set, dreaming about all that has been, all that may be, and all that will never be. There’s something sort of magical about that time when the sun is only just beyond the horizon–its warmth is still close enough to feel in the air, yet you know that beyond lies hours of the mystical darkness of night, penetrated only by the “new moon, thinner than a hair.”
I love cummings’ poetry.