Love 26: A love of love and of roses

 

E. E Cummings, 1894-1962, American

 

Somewhere i have never travelled, gladly

from Complete Poems, 1904-1962 published in several editions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Roses Brooklyn Botanical Garden June 2015-096

 

 

 

 

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 skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

 

 

 

 

 

or if your wish 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

 

 

Untitled, 1983, bronze.

 Marisa Merz, Italian, 1926-2019.  Loaned to the Philadelphia Art Museum by a private collection

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roses of the Morris Arboretum, University of Pennsylvania;  NY Botanical Gardens, the Bronx, NY; and  the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, NY

 

 

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “Love 26: A love of love and of roses

  1. Yes, the world of roses offers a transcendent love affair to all who stand near to them. Thank you for this moving reflection, Sarah

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