Nobody, Not Even the Rain, Has Such Small Hands

February 14, 2007 by charlotteotter 21 Comments

Today, my oldest daughter ran home to tell me that her most favourite boy-friend had given her a handmade Valentine’s card. Red, heart-shaped, with a photo of her on the front, it was accompanied by a small chocolate which she ate for her dessert. Her grin today has been enormous.

I received the best present ever in my inbox from my most favourite boy-friend – the beautiful ee cummings love poem “somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond”. I’ll share it with you:

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 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 colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what is 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

I don’t know whose grin was bigger, hers or mine.