e.e. cummings – LVII
e.e. cummings: Now here’s a guy whom I never, ever want to write like, even if I could, and that I can only read in small doses, yet wrote this gorgeous poem that touches something deep inside me that I can’t define. The music in a line like “the snow carefully everywhere descending” gives me shivers. I love this poem. Read it aloud. Enough said.
LVII
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 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
e.e. cummings
September 7, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Breathtaking and beautiful. I enjoyed this line, “… only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses. ” TY for yet another moving, graceful prose.
September 8, 2009 at 9:14 am
Glad you liked it…
September 7, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Wht does the title LVII mean?
September 7, 2009 at 10:41 pm
His poems in the book are numbered (this is 57) without titles.
September 8, 2009 at 6:49 am
Good Morning!
I agree – I really don’t usually like him, but this one talks well (if that makes sense…even though it’s Tuesday, it feels like Monday here – with the usual morning tiredness that goes with it!)
September 8, 2009 at 9:12 am
Oh, it certainly feels like Monday here. Thanks for dropping in today and reading…
September 8, 2009 at 8:02 am
Silly me for not knowing this! Never had to count that high in Roman numerals.
September 8, 2009 at 9:13 am
I have the advantage of looking in the book. Usually his first line is substituted for a title…
September 8, 2009 at 2:27 pm
e.e. cummings has written many, many beautiful poems. There’s a sweet one about a little Christmas tree written from a child’s point of view; a devastating modern version of the Good Samaritan parable; and a slew of gorgeous love poems. But you sort of have to put aside the ones that look like random alphabet soup in order to find them.
September 8, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Yeah, I have a bunch of them I like. I have the compete poems…
August 22, 2016 at 1:36 am
popular dance brands
e.e. cummings – LVII | Poetry Saved My Life