42.

I wanted to include this poem in my toast, but didn’t, for the same reason I didn’t speak without notes, because I didn’t trust myself.

It’s by e.e. cummings and goes like this:

since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you; wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world

my blood approves, and kisses are a better fate than wisdom lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry —the best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then laugh, leaning back in my arms for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

I am not too big on the last part when the grammar metaphors come; I guess that ties in with “syntax” in the beginning. The simple phrases really get to me though. since feeling is first, my blood approves, lady I swear by all flowers. Don’t cry, we are for each other: Oh yes.

I first heard this on PATV, specifically this episode.