Friday, June 25, 2010

Chipper Zombie (cont.)

I meant to post this yesterday. At the start of his play, "The Glass Menagerie," Tennessee Williams includes a line from the end of an e. e. cummings' poem: "nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands."


Here's the poem in full, "somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond":

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



3 comments:

Sevach said...

What an astounding poem.

August said...

Isn't it awesome? Some e.e. cummings poems I don't "get." But this one? The syntax? Man.

We just finished discussing "The Glass Menagerie." A student compared Laura to water, so ubiquitous, able to fit in cracks. She haunts him. Just want to memorize it and chew it up!

Aki Mori said...

College students are so lucky to have professors like you who introduce them to amazing literary works.