on a poem by e e cummings, no. 3 from 95 Poems (1958)

* * *

now air is air and thing is thing:no bliss

of heavenly earth beguiles our spirits,whose
miraculously disenchanted eyes

live the magnificent honesty of space.

Mountains are mountains now;skies now are skies
and such a sharpening freedom lifts our blood
as if whole supreme this complete doubtless

universe we’d(and we alone had)made

-yes;or as if our souls,awakened from
summer’s green trance,would not adventure soon
a deeper magic:that white sleep wherein
all human curiosity we’ll spend
(gladly, as lovers must)immortal and

the courage to receive time’s mightiest dream

© e e cummings