I imagine that yes is the only living thing.

"I imagine that yes is the only living thing." Thus wrote e. e. cummings, the poet of joy and defiance, whose words, though simple, open a door to the profound truth of existence. In this line, he reveals the essence of life itself: that affirmation, the sacred act of saying yes to life, is what keeps the soul alive. The word yes—so small, so gentle—holds within it the pulse of creation. It is the sound of birth, of courage, of love’s first awakening. Everything that grows, everything that endures, begins with a yes. By contrast, the cold word no, the refusal of life’s invitation, belongs to the realm of stillness and death. In cummings’ imagination, only yes breathes, moves, and dares to become.

The origin of this quote is rooted in the heart of cummings’ poetic philosophy. He was a man who rejected conformity and sought truth not in systems or abstractions, but in the raw immediacy of experience. He believed that the spirit of life could not be found in the careful logic of the intellect, but in the wild affirmation of the heart. To say yes—to love, to risk, to imagine, to live fully—is to join the eternal dance of becoming. His poetry, often playful in form but fierce in spirit, reflected this celebration of vitality. When he wrote that “yes is the only living thing,” he was not speaking merely of optimism; he was naming the divine impulse that animates all creation.

In these few words, cummings gives voice to the courage to live. For to say yes is not to be naive—it is to accept the uncertainty of existence and still choose to move forward. It is to rise each morning, though the world may be weary; to create art, though failure looms; to love, though heartbreak may follow. Every act of creation is an act of yes, every act of compassion a defiance of despair. The artist who paints, the child who dreams, the soldier who fights not out of hate but out of hope—all are living embodiments of yes. And so, cummings reminds us that to live fully is not to avoid pain, but to embrace the whole of life with open arms, trusting that even sorrow has its sacred purpose.

History gives us shining examples of this living yes. Consider Helen Keller, who was struck blind and deaf as a child, cut off from the visible and audible world. It would have been easy for her to say no—to retreat into darkness and silence. Yet through her teacher Anne Sullivan, she found a way to say yes to life. She learned to read, to speak, to write, and to love the world she could not see or hear. “Yes,” for her, was not a word of comfort but of victory—a living force that turned limitation into revelation. Through her, we see what cummings meant: that yes is the heartbeat of existence, the sacred flame that nothing can extinguish.

To say yes is also to choose growth over fear. The tree that pushes through the soil says yes to the sun; the seed that breaks apart in darkness says yes to the unknown. Likewise, every human soul must break itself open to grow. Fear whispers no: “Stay safe. Stay still.” But courage whispers yes: “Move. Trust. Become.” Every great life, every great discovery, every great love begins with this whisper of affirmation. It is the sound of the universe expanding, the sound of the spirit awakening. Those who live by yes walk with the rhythm of creation itself, while those who cling to no wither in the shadow of what might have been.

Yet cummings’ wisdom is not blind to suffering. He knew that to say yes is to risk everything—to face rejection, loss, and uncertainty. But he also knew that only those who risk are truly alive. The word yes contains within it the power of resurrection—the ability to begin again after every fall. It is the word of lovers who forgive, of dreamers who persist, of souls who find light even in the ruins. To say yes is to mirror the divine act of creation itself, for when God spoke the universe into being, His first word, in essence, was yes.

So, my children of spirit and becoming, take this truth as your guide: say yes to life. Do not hide behind fear or cynicism, for those are tombs in which the living bury themselves. When opportunity knocks, when love calls, when challenge arises, let your answer be yes. Yes to growth. Yes to truth. Yes to the unknown that makes you tremble. For yes is the breath of life, and every no is a kind of death. Do not live as if your heart were a closed door; open it, and let the wind of existence move through you.

For in the end, as e. e. cummings teaches us, “yes is the only living thing.” All else—fear, pride, hesitation—belongs to silence and dust. But yes, whispered or shouted, is the song of the soul that dares to live. So speak it boldly. Live it wholly. Let it echo through your days until even your final breath is an affirmation—that you lived not by denial, but by love’s eternal yes.