"A clown's smirk in the skull of a baboon (where once good lips stalked or eyes firmly stirred) my mirror gives me, on this afternoon; I am a shape that can but eat and turd ere with the dirt death shall him vastly gird, a coward waiting clumsily to cease whom every perfect thing meanwhile doth miss; A hand's impression in an empty glove, a soon forgotten tune, a house for lease. I have never loved you dear as now I love Behold this fool who, in the month of June, having certain stars and planets heard, rose very slowly in a tight balloon until the smallening world became absurd; Him did an archer spy (whose aim had erred never) and by that little trick or this he shot the aeronaut down, into the abyss -and wonderfully I fell through the green groove of twilight, striking into many a piece. I have never loved you dear as now I love God's terrible face, brighter than a spoon, collects the image of one fatal word; So that my life (which liked the sun and the moon) resembles something that has not occurred: I am a birdcage without any bird, a collar looking for a dog, a kiss without lips; a prayer lacking any knees but something beats within my shirt to prove he is undead who, living, no one is. I have never loved you dear as now I love. Hell (by most humble me which shall increase) open thy fire! for I have had some bliss of one small lady upon earth above; To whom I cry, remembering her face, I have never loved you dear as now I love" e.e. Cummings (1894-1962) At the time of his death in 1962, he was the second most widely read poet in the United States after Robert Frost. He continues to be one of my favorites. Image created by Queen Type O Negative(tm). Copyright 2007 Flicker Light(tm) Studio.