[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by e.e. cummings
[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
e.e. cummingsi carry your heart with me(i carry it inmy heart)i am never without it(anywherei go you go,my dear;and whatever is doneby only me is your doing,my darling)i fearno fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i wantno world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meantand whatever a sun will always sing is youhere is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the budand the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which growshigher than soul can hope or mind can hide)and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars aparti carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
SELECTED BY RICK BAROT
We are living in dark, dark times, and I find myself repeatedly going to the fundamental modes of poetry: the prayer, the love poem,
the elegy, the ode.
These are all poems of praise, in gestures that speak against oblivion, destruction, silence, loss.
cummings’s love poem, “[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in],” is as plain and piercing a love poem can get.
The poem feels intimate and cosmic at the same time, which is what it feels like to be in the deepest love.
ABOUT RICK BAROT
Rick Barot’s most recent book of poems is Moving the Bones (Milkweed Editions, 2024). He lives in Tacoma, Washington, and directs the Rainier Writing Workshop, the low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University.
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SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by e.e. cummings, published by Liverlight, 1991. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)
DESCRIPTION
“10At the time of his death in 1962 e.e. cummings was, next to Robert Frost, the most widely read poet in America. For this edition of cummings’s work, George Firmage has gone back to the poet’s original manuscripts to ensure the accuracy of the transcriptions. In particular, the spatial arrangement of the typography now conforms as precisely as possible to cummings’s very specific intentions. To the contents of the volumes published during cummings’s lifetime – now arranged in the order he originally specified – have been added all of the hitherto uncollected poems as well as the unpublished poems first issued in 1983.” (Source)
ABOUT E.E. CUMMINGS
Edward Estlin (E.E.) Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cummings earned both his BA and MA from Harvard, and his earliest poems were published in Eight Harvard Poets (1917). In 1922 he published his first book, The Enormous Room, a fictionalized account of his French captivity. Cummings’ first collection of poems, Tulips and Chimneys, appeared in 1923. Another collection quickly followed: XLI Poems, also in 1925. By the time of his death in 1962 Cummings held a prominent… (more)
Read more poems by e.e. cummings • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
- This is Day 34 of Poems We Carry, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry—a living archive I’ve nurtured for two decades. For this milestone series, I invited writers I deeply admire to share poems that have meant something to them over time.
- Explore other works in pursuit of: love • connection • heart • Or browse the index
- If this work resonates with you, please consider supporting the archive. Thank you for reading.
