Things Which Enclose Me

—Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

somewhere i have never travelled
—e.e. cummings

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 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 my understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

__________________

—Medusa

To hear e.e. cummings read his poem and to see the original manuscript and its punctuation, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWcuGo0rEFo