[454] If I have made, my lady, intricate

Guest poem submitted by Sonya Bhagat, <sonyabhagat@>:

If I have made, my lady, intricate
imperfect various things chiefly which wrong
your eyes (frailer than most deep dreams are frail)
songs less firm than your body's whitest song
upon my mind - if I have failed to snare
the glance too shy - if through my singing slips
the very skilful strangeness of your smile
the keen primeval silence of your hair

- let the world say "his most wise music stole
nothing from death" -
		    you will only create
(who are so perfectly alive) my shame:
lady whose profound and fragile lips
the sweet small clumsy feet of April came

into the ragged meadow of my soul.

	-- e. e. cummings

After "somewhere i have never travelled... not even the rain has such small
hands" he comes very close to expressing the inexpressible, conjuring sights,
sounds and sensations akin to what it must feel to hold spun strands of gold or
crystal. One is afraid to read it lest it be dented even slightly.

Sonya.

[thomas adds]

It's true. Rarely have I come across a poem as delicate as this (and as
delicately beautiful). cummings rocks.

From: Yvette R Sangiorgio <yvetters@>

Did I miss something.....I did not read in the poem the "somewhere i have
never travelled... not even the rain has such small hands."  Was this an
omission?  I also love the beauty of e. e. cummings.  If I could find my
poetry book of e. e. cummings in my library, I would try to find the answer.
Thanks.

From: "Ivy Smith" <ivy@>

The comments for poem #454 (cummings' "If I have made, my lady, intricate")
actually appear to refer to poem #619 (cummings' "somewhere i have never
travelled").  That's what's causing the confusion expressed by commentator
Yvette, I think.