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, misteriously) 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 

by E.E. Cummings