love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds

No Thanks #58 (1935), p. 443

*************************************************

these children singing in stone

these children singing in stone a
silence of stone these
little children wound with stone
flowers opening for

ever these silently lit
tle children are petals
their song is a flower of
always their flowers

of stone are
silently singing
a song more silent
than silence these always

children forever
singing wreathed with singing
blossoms children of
stone with blossoming

eyes
know if a
lit tle
tree listens

forever to always children singing forever
a song made
of silent as stone silence of
song

50 Poems #37 (1940), p. 525

*************************************************

silence

silence

.is
a
looking

bird:the

turn
ing;edge,of
life

(inquiry before snow

"Poem 40" from 95 Poems (1958), p. 712

*************************************************

i am a little church

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
—i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
—i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

"Poem 77" from 95 Poems (1958), p. 749

*************************************************

enter no(silence

enter no(silence is the blood whose flesh
is singing)silence:but unsinging. In
spectral such hugest how hush,one

dead leaf stirring makes a crash

—far away(as far as alive)lies
april;and i breathe-move-and-seem some
perpetually roaming whylessness—

autumn has gone:will winter never come?

o come,terrible anonymity;enfold
phantom me with the murdering minus of cold
—open this ghost with millionary knives of wind—
scatter his nothing all over what angry skies and

gently
        (very whiteness:absolute peace,
never imaginable mystery)
                                      descend

from 73 Poems #67 (1963), p. 839.

e. e. cummings (1894-1962),
Complete Poems, (1913-1962)
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, NY, 1972

Notes: The page numbers refer to the 1972 edition of E.E. Cummings' Complete Poems.