Hands in Poems: E.E. Cummings (II)

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 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

The Heart in Poems: E.E. Cummings

E.E. Cummings (1894-1962) was one of the most innovative, avant-garde, experimental poets of his time and holds a prominent position in 20th-century poetry. He  experimented with poetic form and language to create a distinct personal style. His poems are spare and precise, employing a few key words eccentrically placed on the page. Some of these words were invented by Cummings, often by combining two common words into a new synthesis. 

Two things to remember him on the anniversary of his death, one is a copy of his advice to students on writing and another one is my favorite of his poems, "I Carry Your Heart With Me".

I Carry Your Heart With Me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                         i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)