Friday, December 16, 2016

i am a little church(no great cathedral)


i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendour and squalor of hurrying cities
– i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest
i not sorry when sun and rain make april
my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of the earth’s own clumsy striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness
around them surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory in 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)

--e. e. cummings, 95 Poems, 1958
 


Links: A Theological Reflection on the little church of e e cummings

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