Friday, August 04, 2006

somewhere never travelled

I have to share this poem. With someone.

Even the one who knows me most intimately doesn't know that this is how I feel I come across to the world. That this would be the best interpretation of me.

The scent of flowers emanating from this poem
is the same I feel flowing from beneath my skin.



somehwere 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


2 comments:

Billy Joe said...

Happened onto your blog when I was checking out who listed "Growth of the Soil" as a favorite book. Thought you might like this poet if you haven't already been introduced.

sincerely,
billy


Failing and Flying
by Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.

It's the same when love comes to an end,

or the marriage fails and people say

they knew it was a mistake, that everybody

said it would never work. That she was

old enough to know better. But anything

worth doing is worth doing badly.

Like being there by that summer ocean

on the other side of the island while

love was fading out of her, the stars

burning so extravagantly those nights that

anyone could tell you they would never last.

Every morning she was asleep in my bed

like a visitation, the gentleness in her

like antelope standing in the dawn mist.

Each afternoon I watched her coming back

through the hot stony field after swimming,

the sea light behind her and the huge sky

on the other side of that. Listened to her

while we ate lunch. How can they say

the marriage failed? Like the people who

came back from Provence (when it was Provence)

and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.

I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,

but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Thekla said...

Hello, billyhowl
Thank you very much for your poetic reply/commentary. I had actually not been introduced to this poet before, but this poem grabbed me straight away. I have now ordered a collection of his poems. Looking forward to that.

sincerely,
Thekla