American Poetry

» kiribai - i have never traveled,gladly beyond

I'm not a frequent reader of poetry and I read this poem for the first time today. I had heard it read, in a movie and at a wedding, as a love poem to an adult, but I was exchanging email with a friend who is about to become a father, and I thought of the last line.

Doesn't it all make a little more sense if this is a love poem to a newborn? Not the "small hands", (though I like the notion of literal small hands paralleling the metaphor of small hands like rain opening petals - it almost breaks the metaphor), but the fragility, the exaggeration and emotional intensity in spite of an unbalanced communication? I double checked and he was a parent.

Did e.e. cummings say this was a love poem to a woman? Why would anyone assume that it is? Linda Sue Grimes mentions sexual interest and undressing, but the opening and closing seem to be emotional or spiritual, though the closing seems to be something good, which is different from what is usually meant by closing in that context.

Again, I'm not a poetry reader. I'm asking because I don't know.

-- posted by kiribai