Favourite "Hand" poems

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, 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 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
-- e. e. cummings


Hand-Journey

How is it, my love,
that your hand,
though small,
seems as wide as that longed-for land here in mine?
The clouds on your nails,
the ravines on your fingers,
their thin brooks of hair
and the changing of the seasons,
of cold and heat as you quickly pressed,
let go and held tightly
each time we met,
but why did it have to be in secret--
everything seems neverending
how can this,
my dizzy,
shy,
hasty kiss,
take the trip.
-- a translation of Fr. Alejo's poem Lakbay-Kamay