I'm not, you know, proud of it, but I did. I've always belonged to the school of "poetry isn't something you should have to torture a confession out of" and cummings, from the time I first read him as a child (which was probably my first mistake) seemed like someone less interested in telling a story and more interested in being clever.
Until recently. Until Kerry sent me a reading of May I Feel, Said He.
Woah. Good Poetry.
***
"The issue is the lexical gap."
In almost any other circumstance I would instantly be embarrassed by the fact that this sentence came tumbling out of my mouth. But it's late, I'm among friends, and we've been up and talking for hours. There's a pause in the conversation and someone interjects:
"Have you thought at all about the Greek?"
There's are a lot of things I love about having friends who are theologians. For the record, there are a lot of things I love about having friends with esoteric interests. But theologians are nice because they have access to Ancient Greek and Biblical Hebrew.
And because they like to drink scotch and talk into the wee hours of the morning.
And because they like to drink scotch and talk into the wee hours of the morning.
This is one of those conversations. As a former theologian and generally sort of curious person, I can sit up and talk academic theology for hours. As someone who spends a not insignificant part of her life wishing she could believe in God in some capacity, I can sit up all night and talk about the soul's desire for union with the Divine, about the emotional parts of faith, about knowing in your gut that there is a God who loves you.
Anyway, the conversation has been winding on for hours, there's been a fair amount of yelling (me, of course), some pounding on the table to make a point, and at times five-minute long breakdowns into laughter. This is precisely the kind of evening I love, the kind of socializing where I feel most at home and most like myself.
As I'm not writing a dissertation or teaching high school students theology, I don't have much to contribute to those bits of the conversation, but eventually things turn to my life and work. I touch on how fulfilling work has been and how much I like where I'm living. We get into writing for awhile and I confess that I feel stuck. I've been doing a lot of writing about Love, and I feel like I'm starting the repeat myself. The issue is, of course, that the writing I want to do about Love isn't necessarily about ohmygodILOVEYOU love. I mean, yeah, I'm single and really fucking angsty about it, so a fair amount is pretty emo, but there are people and things I love and want to write about, but language is failing me. Hence the lexical gap. And the suggestion to look to the Greek. The conversation doesn't linger here too long, we're almost instantly on C.S. Lewis's book The Four Loves, and then to his friendship with Tolkien and then to books we covet.
But the thought of the Greek keeps me up even after I've ushered everyone out into the snowy evening and ensured that they have means of getting home.
Yes. I am exactly the kind of person who is kept up at night by lexical gaps and Ancient Greek.
***
I seem to have accidentally memorized the poem [i carry your heart with me (i carry it in)].
I have, over the course of a few years, attempted to memorize a few poems. They feel very much like prayers and come to me in much the same fashion. When I'm foundering on at work, the first lines of Sonnet XXIX come to mind. When I'm upset about a relationship, I repeat Mary Oliver's "The Uses of Sorrow" to myself under my breath. When I'm frustrated by how the world is GOING STRAIGHT TO HELL and shouting about how the Boomers have just bitched everything for us, I recall the line "Love someone who does not deserve it" from "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front."
Memorizing this poem by ee cummings came as a surprise.
Shortly after Kerry sent me "May I Feel, Said He" I was helping some friends choose readings for their wedding. As a former poet and poetry enthusiast, I was pulling up a number of love poems. The poems, however, didn't feel much like the couple, so I bookmarked a few of them to enjoy later. But the cummings, for whatever reason, has stuck in my head like the hook from a great pop song.
i carry your heart with me. (i carry it in my heart)
Over the past weeks I've wanted to use that line more times than I can count. The problem, of course, is that [i carry your heart (i carry it in)] is a LOVE poem. It's a poem you would read at someone's wedding. It's the kind of poem I can imagine tumbling out of my mouth after a long evening in with someone I'm dating (I'm more fun than this makes me sound, I promise.)
But I can't stop thinking about the poem. And I nearly recite the line over the phone as a good friend tells me about a gut-wrenching breakup. I think about it when someone else tells me about a family member diagnosed with a terminal illness. I actually write it in a card I'm sending to a friend going through a rough spot before thinking it might be a little overblown and rewriting the whole damn thing.
***
Lexical gaps annoy the hell out of me.
Of course they do. I write for a living. I emote for a hobby. I've been told that I feel things more deeply than most people. So I need to know that there are words to express whatever the hell it is that I'm feeling.
The lexical gap for love annoys me more than most. I need a word that means "We're related and I care about you, so I will always buy you remote controlled robots for Christmas and if you're ever in jail I'll come bail you out." I need another that means "I will spend an entire Sunday helping you Keratin treatment your hair and watching Game of Thrones (probably giving myself cancer in the process). " I need another one that means "Every time I think about you I want you here, now, so we can [censored] and then spend the rest of the night talking about modern literature and feminism and cracking up over terrible puns."
But I don't have any of those words. I've got a big, ridiculous lexical gap that I can't fill. And as much as I would like those words, as much as I not-so-secretly want to employ the Ancient Greek, it isn't coming back into vogue any time soon. So instead I find myself repeating the simple truth behind all these kinds of love.
I carry your heart with me. I carry it in my heart.
Turns out cummings wasn't as much of a hack as I thought.
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