poetry

For some reason, this poem was on my mind today. I was just recalling our honeymoon in San Francisco recently. Maybe that's what brought the poem to mind. The last time I was in the City Lights bookstore I picked up a book of poetry by e.e. cummings. I don't think I'd ever bought poetry before then. The purchase was supposed to be the beginning of my poetry phase. Well, that never really took hold, but this poem in particular has always moved me.

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence;
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens,only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

-e.e. cummings