Birthday Poem inspired by e.e. cummings & Kwame Alexander & Yoda

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Buffy's Blog for Roundup. 

I'm in with a quick birthday poem for my sweet husband, whose birthday is today! I was inspired to write it after reading Kwame Alexander's e.e. cummings-inspired poem in OUT OF WONDER. 

I love the risks e.e. cummings took with his work, how unique and unrestrained... I tell kids all the time how one thing that draws me to poetry is how there really are no rules... e.e. cummings is a great example of that! Plus his sometimes-backwards way of phrasing things reminds me of Yoda. :)

Here is perhaps my favorite e.e. cummings poem (a love poem, of course!):

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

And here is Kwame Alexander's poem:

I Like Your

celebrating e.e. cummings

I like my shoes when they are with

your shoes. Mostly the comes. Leastly

the goes. I carry your footsteps(onetwothreefour)

in between today(...)tomorrow.

Again

          and again

                          and again

                                         I like 

to feel the flowers, and the follow

to your lead
It is such a happy thing to yes the next with you

to walk on magic love rugs beneath the what

and why nots

the anythings of

liking everybloomingthing -- four feet, two hearts, one

great           GREAT          GREAT(US)

going.

- Kwame Alexander

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And here is mine:

birthday poem

to you happy birthday

on this most beautiful day

stick a candle in every island

blow your sweet breath across

oceans into my seashell ear

to you happy birthday

in my rivers a thousand thank yous

for candles oceans the universe you

on this most beautiful day

for you i wish

- Irene Latham