Tuesday, April 1, 2008

somewhere i have never travelled

I don't know if I have a favorite poem, or a favorite poet for that matter. Usually I say Emily Dickinson, and I would probably say that now if pressed, but there are others that I hold in as high esteem: Pablo Neruda, Nikki Giovanni, Edna Millay, ee cummings. It is this last whose poem comes to mind at this moment, and so, here it is.


somewhere i have never travelled

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 color 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

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I really like this one. I've never read it before. Thanks for sharing!