hate blows a bubble of despair into
hugeness world system universe and bang
-fear buries a tomorrow under woe
and up comes yesterday most green and young
pleasure and pain are merely surfaces
(one itself showing,itself hiding one)
life’s only and true value neither is
love makes the little thickness of the coin
comes here a man would have from madame death
nevertheless now and without winter spring?
she’ll spin that spirit her own fingers with
and give him nothing (if he should not sing)
how much more than enough for both of us
darling. And if i sing you are my voice,
To me this poem like so many of his others, is about love. The metaphor is the coin. Relationships bring you pain and pleasue but love holds it all together.
The pleasure and pain are sides of the coin and thus have no substance…it is love that gives it its thickness, its substance.
e.e. cummings I adore. In any case, I think it’s beautiful that someone can be so inspired by poetry. If you have a screen shot or a picture of the paintings you did in honor of this poem, I’d be very eager to see them, provided you were willing to share. Thanks!
This is one of my very favorite poems of all time. I have completed two paintings in honor of it, especially regarding the line “and if i sing you are my voice…” I have no great knowledge of poetry, but I do know that here is a poem that has been able to exactly match my mood and simple state of being. To me, it is a great beauty when we are fortunate enough to treasure a work by another as expressing what we precisely feel; it is just one more small bound in uniting humanity.