I carry your heart - by E. E. Cummings

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 it's 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

Draught

on the red earth
of Africa,
thin soil
wrought
with draught,
yearns
for God’s tears.

its little children,
mothered
by hunger,
fatherless,
long for
God's short arms
to wrap them
in love;

they reach
ashen faces
into the sky
waiting for
invisible hands
to wipe
dry sobs
off their breath.

Helena Malheur 2004

Summer in Florida

moist air
lingers like a fog,
stifling my sticky skin,

a white fan vibrates
on mismatched tile,
buzzing;

it sounds like
a bee colony has moved
into the living room.

beads of sweat drip 
down a glass of sweet tea,
onto the mahogany table.

I adjust the volume
on the radio
to hear the weather;

even the weatherman
wants to
loosen his tie.

sometimes,
I wish
I lived in the Arctic.
　
Helena Malheur 2009

Ghosts

The bees buzzing through thick air,
the calls of church bells rising with morning,
and the vacant streets filling with sound from
cars, trucks, and barking dogs,
bring the humming of sleeping ghosts awakening;
time won’t stand still under my head,
and the weight of melancholia sets its home
on my sleepy shoulders, heavier than boulders,
digging into the skin under my neck.

Then, I start my daily cries to God
to save me from this vile despair,
born of nothing and everything.
But, when even his voice can not excise the ghosts
nesting on my eyelids, I paint my tears
on the artificial sky, below the burning moon
and above the burgeoning ache expanding like
my elastic heart, into clouds of black smoke.

Helena Malheur © 2010

Late October

A late October day came to me
dressed as a farmer,
reached its harvest hands
to pick the ripened apples of my love --
buds from seeds of rotten fruit
fallen from the tree of his adoration, last season;
they are now fragrant of countryside and
polished like freshwater pearls.

And in the rustic meadow of yesterday's memory,
white smoke billows from the chimney,
past the open window of my beloved's cozy cottage,
brushing against my intended’s hold
in our quiet comfort and
past the crackle of quivering flames
in the wrought iron fireplace, below
the corniced mantel shelf that is my heart,
shouldering picture frames of intentional smiles.

Tomorrow, he will read to me
from the crumpled love notes stored in his bedside table;
and the letters of his words will dance a pirouette
to the rhythm of his voice like Begichev‘s swans
above the thirsty pillow on the side of his bed.
I'll lay my head to rest, a violet quilt wrapped around my body
and the curls of my hair stretched out on his chest
like Chopin’s Fantaisie in F Minor.

H. Malheur © 2010

J.B.