Pity this busy monster

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
                          A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

Oh the joy of truth. Oh the wisdom of parallelism. This poem has been a dear friend since the first day I read it back in my days at UC Berkeley. I came to recognize those many years ago that man"kind"
is not always so, and though the reference in "kind" may also mean "type", this does not blunt the truth of this poem. There is so much to mine here, and so many gems to discover.

I'll limit myself to commenting on two parts:
1. Progress being a diseases of comfort. How true this is, and how remarkable a statement. This is a testament to his genius with slicing up language to find a true expression. If ther is anything we must be aware of with progress, it is the fulfillment of a fundamental human desir for comfort. This fulfillment results in our pervasive diseases of body and mind that plague us today. We are our own worst enemies in this regard.

2. The presence of a great universe, next door. How many people have used how many words to expres the recognition of alternate lifestyles, philosophies and paradigms? How many work as well as this simple phrase I discovered long ago that there are indeed beautiful universes "next door" that do not involve drugs. The truth of this is far reaching, and one way it resonates is with Thoreau talking about our minds having deep rut and the importance of recognizing and then jumping out of them. Cummings sums it up so well here, that we should all just ste aside from the poverty of the dominant paradigm, and join a group of the willing in the universe next door. Genius.

May I be gay

may i be gay

like every lark
who lifts his life

from all the dark


who wings his why

beyond because
and sings an if

of day to yes

If ever there was a poem that succinctly expressed a fundamental tenet of my philosophy, this is it. Out of the crushing despair of the world, we must choose to lift our lives out of the darkness and make our days light. There is such vast wisdom in this poem. Such incredible depth. Even the simple phrasing that conveys that we have a choice about our days. That we choose our moods. That we may "sing" ourselves into a better place. What could be more true than that? And yet less followed?

I recite this poem to my sons quite often, and in my own head many times a day.

I resolve every day to hold tight the truth of suffering, to ackowledge daily the murderous horror of humanity, and by seeing this and letting it wash wholly through me, allow myself to sing myself into a place of light and yes because those are true too.

What better way to express the ineffable feeling of euphoric enlightenment than to call it "Yes"? I think there is no truer way. As with all of Mr. Cummings poetry, he isn't strange and creative with language for the sake of being cute, he is unorthodox because the truth he tries to express is not possible within the normal confines of our language.

Like Rumi said: Language is a tailors shop where nothing fits.

Cummings knew this as many of us do. He brilliantly reorganizes the language to find a truer expression of these ineffable ideas than has ever been conjured elsewhere in English.

This poem is such a deceptively simple and lovely little beacon of light. I treasure it immensely.