somewhere i have never travelled

I ran across this poem in Fr. Jboy's February 12 homily posted at his blog site. I think I'll memorize this poem. It will be a good exercise for my brain and for my heart. Parts of this poem were read by Vincent (Ron Pearlman) in the album version of the theme of Beauty and the Beast TV series (1987-1990).

somewhere i have never traveled
e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never traveled, 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 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.