Visit the Abbey of the Arts online retreat platform to access your programs:

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?

_________________________

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

_________________________

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

_____________________________________

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

Way of Monk Banner (general banner) Banner - Eyes of the Heart  (general banner)

You might also enjoy

Give Me a Word 2025

In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to the divine and to their own inner struggles at work within them. The desert became a place to enter into the refiner’s

Read More »

Monk in the World Guest Post: Sharon Dawn Johnson

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Sharon Dawn Johnson’s reflection Body and Beading As Sacred Texts. Reading and Listening “You need to create your own recipe.” The orthopaedic

Read More »

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.