i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any—lifted from the no

of all nothing—human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings

This prayer-poem bubbles with effervescent joy.  It overflows with gratitude for the day’s beauty, the poet’s thanks spilling onto the page in a sparkling stream of words. Cummings (1894-1962), who famously disdained capital letters, nonetheless used them for God and God’s pronouns so that the Godness of God stood out among all his other words.

In 1999, the American composer Eric Whitacre set this prayer-poem to music. The piece begins low and quiet. Then, with the fourth chord comes a frisson of dissonance spotlighting the word ‘God’ and immediately the voices begin to grow, soaring up to the words ‘amazing’ and hanging long and high on ‘day’. Then we hear the ‘leaping’ of the ‘spirits of trees’ before their energy drifts into the dreamy blue of the sky.

Is the poet emerging from a place of darkness and depression perhaps? The piece helps our hearts to soar with his, especially if we can identify with his former ‘deadness’, especially if we too need to ‘come alive’ again.

Listen out on the word ‘wings’ for Whitacre’s delicately shimmering depiction of a fluttering bird. Or butterfly? It leads into a high solo voice repeating, “i thank You God.” On such a day, the poet wonders how any sentient being could doubt God’s existence, could doubt ‘unimaginable You’. Is he recalling Jesus’ words, “Let anyone with ears to hear, listen!” (Luke 14.35) when he tells us that his ears are ‘awake’, his eyes ‘opened’?