i thank you god for most this amazing day, by e.e. cummings and eric whitacre
In 1999 Eric Whitacre was commissioned by Northern Arizona University to write a set of choral works commemorating the 100th anniversary of their school of music. He chose three of his favorite E.E. Cummings texts and started writing. “The third, i thank You God for most this amazing day, is such a beautiful and joyous poem that the music was at times almost effortless.”
i thank You God for most this amazing day
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 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, 1894 – 1962