somewhere i have never travelled
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
Commentary
A most unusual occurrence: a guest poem suggested (independently) by no less than three different readers - Devyani Saltzman, Raj Palaniswamyand Erin Cheatham. Reading the poem, it’s not hard to see why…
1931.
I don’t know anything about the story behind this poem, but I feel it’s one of the most beautiful love poems I’ve ever read. Whenever I read it, I’m constantly blown away by the tenderness expressed through his use of language. It’s almost as if one can feel the lightness of the caress between these two people. One of my favourite lines has just this effect:
“you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose”
The poem almost ‘breathes’, for all its detail and the analogy of the rose, there is so much room to imagine between the lines. However many times I read it the poem takes on new tones and meanings. It’s limitless.
— Devyani