funk in deep freeze

Somewhere I Have Never Traveled, Gladly Beyond, by E.E. Cummings

21 Jul 2004 Leave a Comment

by meganfinley in literature, poetry

Somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond
by E.E. Cummings

somewhere i have never traveled, 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 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

–

When I posted this on my Myspace blog all those years ago it reminded me of a boy I was dating. It was something about the last stanza. Of course when I read it then the poem struck such a chord in me, it was as if Cummings had seen inside my soul and reproduced it in poetry. And now, sadly, as I’ve grown and forgotten about my past loves, I can’t even remember why it touched me so. All I remember now is that I burst into tears when I read that last stanza.