Somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond.

One of the things in life that most inspires me is poetry and I have had one of those delightful saturdays with lots of time to read today. I spoke to a friend earlier who was talking about E.E Cummings and this inspired me to return to and read some of his gorgeous poetry, something i had not done in over a year. My favourite poem by him is the one below; evocative, beautiful and haunting and with recurring themes of nature, love, death. If you wish to read it, then read it aloud as usually with his writing it doesn't make sense unless you do this...something about the rhythm!!

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 will easily 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