somewhere i have never travelled,

Image by Jacqueline Ashby

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 skillfully,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

From W [Viva], (1931): LVII

For Cummings reading of the poem, listen here. 

Warmly,

Jacqueline