I want to be that friend who can look at something and say that it is a poem. Perhaps a single pea in a plate, a cup on the table, an abstract patterned wall in a parking lot where there used to be a sign, or a magical meal of simple ingredients. When I put flowers in a vase I am not following instructions for a utilitarian object but paying attention to the syntax of the object, its contents, and the surroundings. I want to be like ee cummings who says “Yes” to both the poem and the tangible things on the table.
[since feeling is first]
since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you; wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world my blood approves, and kisses are a better fate than wisdom lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry —the best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelids’ flutter which says we are for each other: then laugh, leaning back in my arms for life’s not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis -- e e cummings