Into these loves, who but for passion looks,
At this first sight here let him lay them by
And seek elsewhere in turning other books,
Which better may his labour satisfy.
No far-fetch'd sigh shall ever wound my breast;
Love from mine eye a tear shall never wring;
Nor in "Ah me's!" my whining sonnets drest:
A libertine, fantasticly I sing.
My verse is the true image of my mind,
Ever in motion, still desiring change;
And as thus to variety inclin'd,
So in all humours sportively I range:
My Muse is rightly of the English strain,
That cannot long one fashion entertain.
At the beginning of his sonnet, Drayton warns the reader: anyone looking just for passion in his or her love is advised to look elsewhere, because they will not find that in his poems. Look to other books, "which may better his labour satisfy." Basically, if you're reading sonnets just for some thrill of love and passion, you're in the wrong place. Drayton seems proud that he is immune to the slings and arrows of love, that he avoids its piercing dart. "No far-fetch'd sign shall ever wound by breast" he boasts, and he mocks other sonnets, "drest" (dressed) in "Ah me's!" and other breathy exclamations of love, the likes of which are nowhere to be seen in his work.
Rather, Drayton fancies himself a libertine, someone who seeks out pleasure as his whims take him, always mutable, "ever in motion." He ranges "sportively" in all humours, as rightly befits an English man. He cannot stay in one mode, but rather, he feels the need to explore, because his "verse is the image of [his] mind." I love that image particularly, the verse being the very image of the mind. While I don't think it's healthy to declare "Love from mine eye a tear shall never wring" I do find the attitude of celebrating radical mental freedom highly appealing. As with all things poetic, it is surely an exaggeration, as no one is so unfeeling as to never cry. I think Drayton means to say that his poems will never be weepy stuff, dripping with idle tears of Love and Passion.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Eye - Charles Wright
Insensitive or discreet
In it the passions move
Seeking an entrance
In it the seasons meet
Mosslike with blood
Blended in clouds
The future a certain map
When the lid shuts
It is a reflection
It is a drawplate
The left and the right
Indistinguishable
In honor of his announcement as the new US Poet Laureate, I've decided to feature a brilliant, insightful (get it?) little poem from Charles Wright. A thorough examination of the eye, this poem presents to many images and metaphors for the eye, describing its function and its importance.
The first two stanzas deal with the eye as a place in which things happen. "In" the eye, our passions move. Our passions can be obvious ("insensitive") or subtle ("discreet"), but no matter how, our eyes are one of the main ways in which our passions are expressed. After all, how telling can a glance be? Just the slightest expression, as shown in the eye, can tell us everything about a person and what they are thinking.
In the second stanza, the eyes function as a meeting place for all the images which it takes in. The seasons, "seeking an entrance" into our minds, enter through the eyes first, there meeting. It reminds me of a famous line from Joyce's Ulysses, in which Stephen Dedalus says, "Thought through my eyes." We do often first take in the world visually, images meet thoughts.
The next two stanzas are descriptions of the eye itself. Criss-crossed with fine capillaries, our eyes are "mosslike with blood" and something of a cloudy aspect. Those tiny blood pathways spreading like clouds, or moss on a round stone, form an unorthodox yet effective image of the detail of the eyeball's exterior. Moving now to the first part of the exterior world the eye sees, the eyelid, acts as a reflection of inner thoughts, the future projected upon it. This is, I think, a clever reference to our "mind's eye," that place we can go where we "see" future events unfolding, with eyes closed.
The metaphors now become more direct. The eye is a reflection of the outside world and our own inner thoughts, and it is the drawplate upon which we draw conclusions about our surroundings. Left and right are the same and separate. To be honest, I'm not sure what function the last stanza serves other than to make sure we all know we're talking about a pair of eyes, and not just one, something which the title neglected to mention.
I really enjoyed this journey around the eyeball and its various functions, both metaphysical and physical, and hope that you did as well. It's concise and crisp, two qualities that I value highly in poetry, and it makes its point with no more or fewer words than it needs. It's not a pointed moral or a narrative, but just an exultation and reflection upon those two wondrous jewels in all of our heads.
In it the passions move
Seeking an entrance
In it the seasons meet
Mosslike with blood
Blended in clouds
The future a certain map
When the lid shuts
It is a reflection
It is a drawplate
The left and the right
Indistinguishable
In honor of his announcement as the new US Poet Laureate, I've decided to feature a brilliant, insightful (get it?) little poem from Charles Wright. A thorough examination of the eye, this poem presents to many images and metaphors for the eye, describing its function and its importance.
The first two stanzas deal with the eye as a place in which things happen. "In" the eye, our passions move. Our passions can be obvious ("insensitive") or subtle ("discreet"), but no matter how, our eyes are one of the main ways in which our passions are expressed. After all, how telling can a glance be? Just the slightest expression, as shown in the eye, can tell us everything about a person and what they are thinking.
In the second stanza, the eyes function as a meeting place for all the images which it takes in. The seasons, "seeking an entrance" into our minds, enter through the eyes first, there meeting. It reminds me of a famous line from Joyce's Ulysses, in which Stephen Dedalus says, "Thought through my eyes." We do often first take in the world visually, images meet thoughts.
The next two stanzas are descriptions of the eye itself. Criss-crossed with fine capillaries, our eyes are "mosslike with blood" and something of a cloudy aspect. Those tiny blood pathways spreading like clouds, or moss on a round stone, form an unorthodox yet effective image of the detail of the eyeball's exterior. Moving now to the first part of the exterior world the eye sees, the eyelid, acts as a reflection of inner thoughts, the future projected upon it. This is, I think, a clever reference to our "mind's eye," that place we can go where we "see" future events unfolding, with eyes closed.
The metaphors now become more direct. The eye is a reflection of the outside world and our own inner thoughts, and it is the drawplate upon which we draw conclusions about our surroundings. Left and right are the same and separate. To be honest, I'm not sure what function the last stanza serves other than to make sure we all know we're talking about a pair of eyes, and not just one, something which the title neglected to mention.
I really enjoyed this journey around the eyeball and its various functions, both metaphysical and physical, and hope that you did as well. It's concise and crisp, two qualities that I value highly in poetry, and it makes its point with no more or fewer words than it needs. It's not a pointed moral or a narrative, but just an exultation and reflection upon those two wondrous jewels in all of our heads.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Football - Suk Chan Park
Focus
On
yOur
Team's
Ball
And
Leave
Like a hero.
An acrostic written by one of my middle school students, I actually really like how clear the thought is at the core of the poem. Suk Chan successfully articulates a clear thought about football (soccer). Focus and dedication will result in victory, making you a hero.
I really like doing poems with my students. Many of them assume that poetry is very difficult, even in their native Korean. I like teaching acrostics, because it means that all students, from low level to high, can participate equally. As a class, we choose a word to describe. Then we do a group brainstorm, and then out of those words, we assign them to the vertical axis, slowly teasing out the message we want to convey. The word I usually steer my classes towards (or outright pick for them) is student. It's something to which they can all relate, and the responses are usually good and very telling about the Korean education system. Here's one from one of my high schools:
Stressful school studying
Stressful school studying
Tired
wearing Uniforms
lunch is Delicious
English is our second language
Never stop
Trying
It's a bit funny, and reflects how tough the day can be for them, but it also has some notes of optimism about it. I like seeing my students get to be creative, because they so seldom get to do that in their other classes.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
The Grauballe Man - Seamus Heaney
As if he had been poured
in tar, he lies
on a pillow of turf
and seems to weep
the black river of himself.
The grain of his wrists
is like bog oak,
the ball of his heel
like a basalt egg.
His instep has shrunk
cold as a swan's foot
or a wet swamp root.
His hips are the ridge
and purse of a mussel,
his spine an eel arrested
under a glisten of mud.
The head lifts,
the chin is a visor
raised above the vent
of his slashed throat
that has tanned and toughened.
The cured wound
opens inwards to a dark
elderberry place.
Who will say 'corpse'
to his vivid cast?
Who will say 'body'
to his opaque repose?
And his rusted hair,
a mat unlikely
as a foetus's.
I first saw his twisted face
in a photograph,
a head and shoulder
out of the peat,
bruised like a forceps baby,
but now he lies
perfected in my memory,
down to the red horn
of his nails,
hung in the scales
with beauty and atrocity:
with the Dying Gaul
too strictly compassed
on his shield,
with the actual weight
of each hooded victim,
slashed and dumped.
The Grauballe Man is a bog body dating to the 3rd century BC, preserved in remarkable detail. It was found in a peat bog in Denmark, and the man in question appears to have been a human sacrifice, based on other findings in the bog and research into the body. As the poem notes, his throat was slit, and he was dumped in a bog. Heaney's descriptions are raw and vivid, and while I rarely like to do this, I've included images of the body so you can see exactly what I mean.
I think calling it a 'body' is insufficient, as Heaney notes. It's a "cast," a perfect image, resplendent in its hideous beauty and preservation. We can feel such a strong human connection to the past on seeing his face, his gaunt form, his gnarled fingernails. We can even see his hair, still looking soft and alive, though it is undoubtedly coarse and brittle, ready to turn to dust at a touch. I particularly enjoy the image of his spine, "an eel arrested under a glisten of mud."
Here are the photos. I apologize that they may be grotesque, but I think they are also captivating, weirdly beautiful, and trigger within us a massive human connection to all of our ancestry.
in tar, he lies
on a pillow of turf
and seems to weep
the black river of himself.
The grain of his wrists
is like bog oak,
the ball of his heel
like a basalt egg.
His instep has shrunk
cold as a swan's foot
or a wet swamp root.
His hips are the ridge
and purse of a mussel,
his spine an eel arrested
under a glisten of mud.
The head lifts,
the chin is a visor
raised above the vent
of his slashed throat
that has tanned and toughened.
The cured wound
opens inwards to a dark
elderberry place.
Who will say 'corpse'
to his vivid cast?
Who will say 'body'
to his opaque repose?
And his rusted hair,
a mat unlikely
as a foetus's.
I first saw his twisted face
in a photograph,
a head and shoulder
out of the peat,
bruised like a forceps baby,
but now he lies
perfected in my memory,
down to the red horn
of his nails,
hung in the scales
with beauty and atrocity:
with the Dying Gaul
too strictly compassed
on his shield,
with the actual weight
of each hooded victim,
slashed and dumped.
The Grauballe Man is a bog body dating to the 3rd century BC, preserved in remarkable detail. It was found in a peat bog in Denmark, and the man in question appears to have been a human sacrifice, based on other findings in the bog and research into the body. As the poem notes, his throat was slit, and he was dumped in a bog. Heaney's descriptions are raw and vivid, and while I rarely like to do this, I've included images of the body so you can see exactly what I mean.
I think calling it a 'body' is insufficient, as Heaney notes. It's a "cast," a perfect image, resplendent in its hideous beauty and preservation. We can feel such a strong human connection to the past on seeing his face, his gaunt form, his gnarled fingernails. We can even see his hair, still looking soft and alive, though it is undoubtedly coarse and brittle, ready to turn to dust at a touch. I particularly enjoy the image of his spine, "an eel arrested under a glisten of mud."
Here are the photos. I apologize that they may be grotesque, but I think they are also captivating, weirdly beautiful, and trigger within us a massive human connection to all of our ancestry.
Let Me Die A Youngman's Death - Roger McGough
Let me die a youngman's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death
When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party
Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsers
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides
Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one
Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death
I think this speaks to a lot of us, that desire to go out with a bang, rather than a whimper. Who wants to go through the pearly gates in a wheelchair with tubes in your nose? This poem, besides being tremendously humorous, speaks to our deep fears about aging and dying in obscurity, dying infirm. Who wants to live the last of their life confined to a bed, limping alone? The desire to go out in a blaze of glory is ancient and worldwide.
I might be paraphrasing a bit here, but on one of my favorite TV programs, Top Gear (UK), one of the hosts, Jeremy Clarkson, has said that when he dies, he wants it to be an anecdote. I think that sums up this poem pretty well. McGough wants his death to be a funny story at a party, the kind of thing people remember, not some sanitized, boring, sanctified and dignified passing. I can understand that, though being young, I think about death far less often than I should. This poem certainly appeals to that testosterone fueled part of my psyche, that craves adventure and desires hungrily for challenge and notice. It's certainly appealing. 91 and gunned down by gangsters? What a badass, right? That's the allure of this poem, of the youngman's death.
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death
When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party
Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsers
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides
Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one
Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death
I think this speaks to a lot of us, that desire to go out with a bang, rather than a whimper. Who wants to go through the pearly gates in a wheelchair with tubes in your nose? This poem, besides being tremendously humorous, speaks to our deep fears about aging and dying in obscurity, dying infirm. Who wants to live the last of their life confined to a bed, limping alone? The desire to go out in a blaze of glory is ancient and worldwide.
I might be paraphrasing a bit here, but on one of my favorite TV programs, Top Gear (UK), one of the hosts, Jeremy Clarkson, has said that when he dies, he wants it to be an anecdote. I think that sums up this poem pretty well. McGough wants his death to be a funny story at a party, the kind of thing people remember, not some sanitized, boring, sanctified and dignified passing. I can understand that, though being young, I think about death far less often than I should. This poem certainly appeals to that testosterone fueled part of my psyche, that craves adventure and desires hungrily for challenge and notice. It's certainly appealing. 91 and gunned down by gangsters? What a badass, right? That's the allure of this poem, of the youngman's death.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Last Lines - Anne Brontë
I hoped, that with the brave and strong,
My portioned task might lie;
To toil amid the busy throng,
With purpose pure and high.
But God has fixed another part,
And He has fixed it well;
I said so with my bleeding heart,
When first the anguish fell.
A dreadful darkness closes in
On my bewildered mind;
Oh, let me suffer and not sing,
Be tortured, yet resigned.
Shall I wish joy thy blessings share
And not endure their loss?
Or hope the martyr's crown to wear
And cast away the cross?
Thou, God, hast taken our delight,
Our treasured hope away;
Thou bidst us now weep through the night
And sorrow through the day.
These weary hours will not be lost,
These days of misery,
These nights of darkness, anguish-tost,
Can I but turn to Thee.
Weak and weary though I lie,
Crushed with sorrow, worn with pain,
I may lift to Heaven mine eye,
And strive to labour not in vain;
That inward strife against the sins
That ever wait on suffering
To strike whatever first begins:
Each ill that would corruption bring;
That secret labour to sustain
With humble patience every blow;
To gather fortitude from pain,
And hope and holiness from woe.
Thus let me serve Thee from my heart,
Whate'er may be my written fate:
Whether thus early to depart,
Or yet a while to wait.
If thou shouldst bring me back to life,
More humbled I should be;
More wise, more strengthened for the strife,
More apt to lean on Thee.
Should death be standing at the gate,
Thus should I keep my vow;
But, Lord! whatever be my fate,
Oh, let me serve Thee now!
Deeply pious, the youngest Brontë sister, Anne, recounts here her struggles with her faith, and accepting what she perceives as Fate, and God's "portioned task" for her. The language of the poem is straightforward, and conveys the struggle Brontë feels in accepting her losses and tasks. She does not know what she is to be in God's plan. Is she to be a warrior of Faith? Someone who long bears suffering and yet joyfully shares God's blessing? Will she cast away her suffering ("cast away the cross") and be martyred instead?
She does not know. What she does know, is that in "these days of misery, these nights of darkness, anguish-tost, can I but turn to Thee." Despite all of her pain and uncertainty at her roles, her faith never wavers, and she knows to turn to God to sustain her in troubling times. She does not want to "labour in vain," she desperately wants to be able to help.
She ends with a plea, "Thus let me serve Thee from my heart." She is so desperate. If she is to be resurrected, that is, to find eternal life in God, she would be better the second time around, she promises. "If thou shouldst bring me back to life, More humbled I should be; more wise, more strengthened for the strife, more apt to lean on Thee." She wants nothing more than to serve, ending with an anguished "Oh, let me serve Thee now!" She wants her suffering to end, and whether that suffering be through her uncertainty, or from the pain of life on earth, and not in heaven, she wants it to end.
It is worth noting that this poem was written on Anne's deathbed, essentially. She was dying of consumption, and it was quite far progressed by the time it was diagnosed. She knew that she had little time left, but much suffering remaining. To my mind, she is incredibly brave and of strong faith and mind to be so cogent and so accepting in the face of such knowledge.
My portioned task might lie;
To toil amid the busy throng,
With purpose pure and high.
But God has fixed another part,
And He has fixed it well;
I said so with my bleeding heart,
When first the anguish fell.
A dreadful darkness closes in
On my bewildered mind;
Oh, let me suffer and not sing,
Be tortured, yet resigned.
Shall I wish joy thy blessings share
And not endure their loss?
Or hope the martyr's crown to wear
And cast away the cross?
Thou, God, hast taken our delight,
Our treasured hope away;
Thou bidst us now weep through the night
And sorrow through the day.
These weary hours will not be lost,
These days of misery,
These nights of darkness, anguish-tost,
Can I but turn to Thee.
Weak and weary though I lie,
Crushed with sorrow, worn with pain,
I may lift to Heaven mine eye,
And strive to labour not in vain;
That inward strife against the sins
That ever wait on suffering
To strike whatever first begins:
Each ill that would corruption bring;
That secret labour to sustain
With humble patience every blow;
To gather fortitude from pain,
And hope and holiness from woe.
Thus let me serve Thee from my heart,
Whate'er may be my written fate:
Whether thus early to depart,
Or yet a while to wait.
If thou shouldst bring me back to life,
More humbled I should be;
More wise, more strengthened for the strife,
More apt to lean on Thee.
Should death be standing at the gate,
Thus should I keep my vow;
But, Lord! whatever be my fate,
Oh, let me serve Thee now!
Deeply pious, the youngest Brontë sister, Anne, recounts here her struggles with her faith, and accepting what she perceives as Fate, and God's "portioned task" for her. The language of the poem is straightforward, and conveys the struggle Brontë feels in accepting her losses and tasks. She does not know what she is to be in God's plan. Is she to be a warrior of Faith? Someone who long bears suffering and yet joyfully shares God's blessing? Will she cast away her suffering ("cast away the cross") and be martyred instead?
She does not know. What she does know, is that in "these days of misery, these nights of darkness, anguish-tost, can I but turn to Thee." Despite all of her pain and uncertainty at her roles, her faith never wavers, and she knows to turn to God to sustain her in troubling times. She does not want to "labour in vain," she desperately wants to be able to help.
She ends with a plea, "Thus let me serve Thee from my heart." She is so desperate. If she is to be resurrected, that is, to find eternal life in God, she would be better the second time around, she promises. "If thou shouldst bring me back to life, More humbled I should be; more wise, more strengthened for the strife, more apt to lean on Thee." She wants nothing more than to serve, ending with an anguished "Oh, let me serve Thee now!" She wants her suffering to end, and whether that suffering be through her uncertainty, or from the pain of life on earth, and not in heaven, she wants it to end.
It is worth noting that this poem was written on Anne's deathbed, essentially. She was dying of consumption, and it was quite far progressed by the time it was diagnosed. She knew that she had little time left, but much suffering remaining. To my mind, she is incredibly brave and of strong faith and mind to be so cogent and so accepting in the face of such knowledge.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
[somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond] - E. E. Cummings
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 fraglility: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
Open and close. Fingers like flower-petals, Cummings depicts fragility as a source of great strength, which have the capacity to contain and "unclose" the narrator. I'd feel fairly comfortable calling this a love poem, but more comfortable calling it a wonder poem. Everything about it wonders in amazement and deep appreciation, heartfelt admiration of the great power wielded by one so outwardly fragile.
The dominant image of the poem is that of opening and closing. The narrator has "closed himself as fingers" and it is only through the intercession of the object, the "you" of the poem, can he open and bloom. Bloom is a fitting word, considering that it is not the fists of a finger being opened, rather, "you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens her first rose." It's a mystery how, but the touch is skillful.
The "you" of the poem, the love/admiration object, by sense, slowly opens Cummings. Their "silence" and "frail gesture enclose" the narrator, cradling him softly. The "look" does not enclose, but "unclose," opening the narrator up to new experience. So willing is Cummings to bend to this you that if it is their wish, his life will "shut very beautifully." Continuing the flower simile, Cummings, comparing himself to a flower, at the slightest suggestion that the love object may want him to close will shut "as when the heart of this flower [my heart] imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending."
"Intense fragility" is the most interesting image in the poem for me. It's like a statement of radical openness. For something fragile to be intense seems like a contradiction, but I think it's that the delicacy and fragility of this love object are so powerful, so touching, that they are an intense emotional experience. Prying open a fist flower with nothing but a look is an intense power over man. Indeed, it "compels" Cummings, and the breath of this love object is life and death itself. He admits it, too, and confesses that he does not know, but something inside him understands.
What a lovely image that is! And haven't we all felt that? Something which we could not know with our minds, could not explain rationally, but on some fundamental emotional level, we understood? The images all throughout the poem carry that trademark Cummings quality of wispy yet clear images, things that sound strange together and yet make perfect sense. Imagining that the rain has small hands seems bizarre, but then again, doesn't it touch us like so many small fingers, so many light, cool touches? "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." The voice of your eyes! What an image. We do speak with our eyes, of course. You can have a full conversation in nothing but glances, blinks, and glares. A lovely, refreshing poem.
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 fraglility: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
Open and close. Fingers like flower-petals, Cummings depicts fragility as a source of great strength, which have the capacity to contain and "unclose" the narrator. I'd feel fairly comfortable calling this a love poem, but more comfortable calling it a wonder poem. Everything about it wonders in amazement and deep appreciation, heartfelt admiration of the great power wielded by one so outwardly fragile.
The dominant image of the poem is that of opening and closing. The narrator has "closed himself as fingers" and it is only through the intercession of the object, the "you" of the poem, can he open and bloom. Bloom is a fitting word, considering that it is not the fists of a finger being opened, rather, "you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens her first rose." It's a mystery how, but the touch is skillful.
The "you" of the poem, the love/admiration object, by sense, slowly opens Cummings. Their "silence" and "frail gesture enclose" the narrator, cradling him softly. The "look" does not enclose, but "unclose," opening the narrator up to new experience. So willing is Cummings to bend to this you that if it is their wish, his life will "shut very beautifully." Continuing the flower simile, Cummings, comparing himself to a flower, at the slightest suggestion that the love object may want him to close will shut "as when the heart of this flower [my heart] imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending."
"Intense fragility" is the most interesting image in the poem for me. It's like a statement of radical openness. For something fragile to be intense seems like a contradiction, but I think it's that the delicacy and fragility of this love object are so powerful, so touching, that they are an intense emotional experience. Prying open a fist flower with nothing but a look is an intense power over man. Indeed, it "compels" Cummings, and the breath of this love object is life and death itself. He admits it, too, and confesses that he does not know, but something inside him understands.
What a lovely image that is! And haven't we all felt that? Something which we could not know with our minds, could not explain rationally, but on some fundamental emotional level, we understood? The images all throughout the poem carry that trademark Cummings quality of wispy yet clear images, things that sound strange together and yet make perfect sense. Imagining that the rain has small hands seems bizarre, but then again, doesn't it touch us like so many small fingers, so many light, cool touches? "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." The voice of your eyes! What an image. We do speak with our eyes, of course. You can have a full conversation in nothing but glances, blinks, and glares. A lovely, refreshing poem.
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