Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO HELEN KELLER, by JOHN VARNEY First Line: Her eyes, miniature mirrors Last Line: Her hands touch hands! Subject(s): Eyes; Flowers; Keller, Helen (1880-1968); Love | ||||||||
Her eyes, miniature mirrors, Distort what they face; Shelled with iris folds Ribboning reality, they Color formlessly what they confront. They smell the flowers they finger And add the flowers' imagery; Finger down to roots they cannot see, But feel the flowers' food. Like a groping sleeper in the night They pass things doubly: The sleeper dreams resisting objects To be opening gates; This poet shadows a word To build a Babel with, or An air-fleet's sky-harbor steel-ballasted. Well is she blind And to her blurred shapes vagaries: For she studies one primordial pattern, The waves that crested at love's inception And the birth of light; These waves break upon her eyeballs as Her hands touch hands! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE INVENTION OF LOVE by MATTHEA HARVEY TWO VIEWS OF BUSON by ROBERT HASS A LOVE FOR FOUR VOICES: HOMAGE TO FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN by ANTHONY HECHT AN OFFERING FOR PATRICIA by ANTHONY HECHT LATE AFTERNOON: THE ONSLAUGHT OF LOVE by ANTHONY HECHT A SWEETENING ALL AROUND ME AS IT FALLS by JANE HIRSHFIELD |
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