Two Poems: One Art, and I Carry Your Heart
I always stay up too late. I am sure it is because I don’t want to confess that another day of life has passed and that I have not gotten everything I want from it.
Tonight’s bedtime avoidance was a movie titled, “In Her Shoes”. It is a movie about the relationship between two sisters. I won’t go into the details; I never like knowing much about a movie before I see it, so I won’t spoil it for you. Suffice it to say I was pleasantly surprised how good it was, I cried several times.
Of particular note were two poems read in the movie. They were wonderful and I can share them with you without spoiling any of the movie.
The first was a poem about loss by Elizabeth Bishop…
One Art
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
– Elizabeth Bishop
The second poem was about love by e.e. cummings…
i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it
(anywhere i go you go,my dear;
and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear no fate
(for you are my fate,my sweet)
i want no world
(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart
(i carry it in my heart)
You can find commentary and analysis about them on the web, but is it really needed? Whatever the words say to you are valid and true enough. I hope they touch you and that you enjoy them as much as I did this evening.
Now I go to bed.
Hi Andrew,
Let me congratulate you on your website. It is very good and your photography is really awesome.
i have just started photography as an hobby and I love what you do with the camera.
Keep going and let the work flow!
Cheers,
Champ.
Comment by Champ — January 6, 2007 @ 4:34 am
Thank Champ,
Good luck with your pursuit of photography, and you can rest assured that I’ll keep the photos coming.
Take care.
Regards,
Andrew
Comment by andrew — January 6, 2007 @ 10:53 am
Andrew, from the movie “Wings of Desire:
Song of Childhood
By Peter Handke
When the child was a child
It walked with its arms swinging,
wanted the brook to be a river,
the river to be a torrent,
and this puddle to be the sea.
When the child was a child,
it didn’t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful,
and all souls were one.
When the child was a child,
it had no opinion about anything,
had no habits,
it often sat cross-legged,
took off running,
had a cowlick in its hair,
and made no faces when photographed.
When the child was a child,
It was the time for these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Is life under the sun not just a dream?
Is what I see and hear and smell
not just an illusion of a world before the world?
Given the facts of evil and people.
does evil really exist?
How can it be that I, who I am,
didn’t exist before I came to be,
and that, someday, I, who I am,
will no longer be who I am?
When the child was a child,
It choked on spinach, on peas, on rice pudding,
and on steamed cauliflower,
and eats all of those now, and not just because it has to.
When the child was a child,
it awoke once in a strange bed,
and now does so again and again.
Many people, then, seemed beautiful,
and now only a few do, by sheer luck.
It had visualized a clear image of Paradise,
and now can at most guess,
could not conceive of nothingness,
and shudders today at the thought.
When the child was a child,
It played with enthusiasm,
and, now, has just as much excitement as then,
but only when it concerns its work.
When the child was a child,
It was enough for it to eat an apple, … bread,
And so it is even now.
When the child was a child,
Berries filled its hand as only berries do,
and do even now,
Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw,
and do even now,
it had, on every mountaintop,
the longing for a higher mountain yet,
and in every city,
the longing for an even greater city,
and that is still so,
It reached for cherries in topmost branches of trees
with an elation it still has today,
has a shyness in front of strangers,
and has that even now.
It awaited the first snow,
And waits that way even now.
When the child was a child,
It threw a stick like a lance against a tree,
And it quivers there still today.
Great movie — Rent it!
Comment by Merlin1818 — January 25, 2007 @ 7:21 pm
Good post. You make some great points that most people
do not fully understand.
“It is a movie about the relationship between two sisters. I won’t go into the details; I never like knowing much about a movie before I see it, so I won’t spoil it for you. Suffice it to say I was pleasantly surprised how good it was, I cried several times.”
I like how you explained that. Very helpful. Thanks.
Comment by chiz — February 14, 2008 @ 1:53 pm