I just can't stop posting to this thread, because it makes me so happy to read all the stuff I'd like to post. I love this poem. It, and the above Anne Sexton, are among those which encouraged me to stop writing immediately, and just enjoy the written word as shaped by those lucky ones who had the gift for it.
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 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
- e. e. cummings