AJ and I got in an argument last night. It went something like this:

AJ: Mommy, I love you.

Harriet: I love you too.

AJ: No, I love YOU.

Harriet: (mistakenly thinking this is a game) No, I love YOU!

AJ: No! I love YOU!

Harriet: No, I love YOU

AJ: No, Mommy. You can�t love me because I love you! (bursts into tears)

Clearly I have misunderstood. I have also, in all likelihood, misunderstood this statement on love:

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

-- e.e. cummings

I�ve always loved the sound of that poem � I once wrote a setting of it for soprano, clarinet and piano. cummings is great for composers, as his poetry is so sound based and there�s so much space for notes (although it�s bad for professional composers because the estate is so difficult to work with that it�s hard to get text rights). Poetry that�s efficient, with tightly woven layers of interconnectedness makes for lousy music 95% of the time. But I digress. As far as meaning goes on this one, I�m at sea, beyond the superficial and downright puerile reading that love is confusing and contradictory, something with which I�m hard pressed to argue.

But it is the sounds of this poem that get at the heart of the matter for me. Part of it is its rhythmic similarity to �Jabberwocky,� which imparts an innate craziness to the poem and often has me recalling the first stanza as:

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
and the mome raths outgrabe

Love is crazy, incomprehensible (to the point of demanding over-analysis), excessively dramatic (with its double comparatives) but it sounds beautiful. Yes, actually, I was an English major in college. I was on the Dean�s list too. Go figure. And cummings, despite the resistance to clear meaning, has established a rigid structure for his meaning � balanced, if incomprehensible metaphors in parallel stanzas. So not only is it crazy, incomprehensible, excessively dramatic and aurally spectacular (no, not that kind of orally), but it�s a controlling bastard.

I might take this opportunity to point out that a recent study suggests that poetry can be hazardous to your health. Unfortunately, the link I had to the article (which was posted just yesterday) has already expired (much like the writers it discussed). The crux of the study, which examined the lifespans of various types of writers throughout the world and determined that poets have a significantly shorter life expectancy than other types of writers. A person quoted in the article referred to this as the �Sylvia Plath Effect.�

But back to AJ. (You remember AJ, don�t you?) So I�ve become rather confused about AJ�s definition of �love� lately. There are two developments in AJ�s world that we�ve noticed recently. One is that he�s suddenly started telling us he loves us all the time. It�s not that we don�t say it to him, but he�s responding tenfold. Also, we�ve clearly entered an Oedipal phase. AJ loves playing with his dad and with me, but if he�s playing with me and his dad walks in, his dad is often greeted with a �Go away!� And then of course there is the general tendency of toddlers to be the center of their own universe. So AJ�s �No, I love you!� may be about his attempt to control his emotions, to control me, to have an impact separate from me. If only it were so easy, that when you declare your love that it defines the situation, regardless of the other person. But in this case even positive interference is unacceptable. Love is about AJ, not about me. It�s a controlling bastard.

The other thing the cummings poem recalls for me is a scene from This is Spinal Tap. Nigel is discussing the cover of the new Spinal Tap album Smell the Glove. �It�s none more black.� It�s so black it doesn�t get any blacker. If forget is thick, than love is thickerer. It is most sane and sunly. And the mome raths outgrabe.

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