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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 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)

-e. e. cummings

Whose heart do you carry in your own?

Who is the one who supports your own doing in the world whole-heartedly?

Where is the invitation to gratitude and wonder this day?

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The Abbey Poetry Party will return this coming Monday, February 15th!

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Lent begins in a week and the Lenten E-Course emails start this coming Monday!

If you’d like to register for this Lenten retreat in everyday life, please sign up in the next day or two so I can get your books mailed off to you in time!

Lenten E-Course - Benedictine Spiritual Practices

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© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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3 Responses

  1. Also one of my favorite love poems which regularly brings tears to my eyes. Only recently I have recognized it applies equally to our relationship with the Lord as it does to our human lovers. Based on several of his other poems, I can’t imagine that Cummings intended it to have that double meaning.

    “…all things were created by Him and for Him.” Colossians 1:16 (NIV)

  2. I found e e cummings when I was quite young and fell in love with his writing. This is one of his most exquisite and deeply moving poems. Would that all who say the word feel it so.