Poetry for My Love

April is National Poetry Month. Marion’s and my lifeblood during our later years when her illness demanded that we abandon our intensive work schedule was poetry. Over a period of five years we spent roughly three months every year at our magnificent suite at the Hotel Regina in Paris. We had a heady life of ballet, opera and just living like flaneurs sitting in cafes, parks, etc. When Marion felt strong enough, we traveled through Europe, visiting friends, dining in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood and attending the regatta in Venice.

On the darker days, when Marion’s pain became severe, she could barely get out of bed. During those times we acquired the habit of my reading aloud to her. We had many favorites, from T.S. Elliot’s  “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “Portrait of a Lady” to 19th century English classics. Marion tutored me in French so there were some verses of Guy de Maupassant that I learned and shamelessly used to demonstrate how cosmopolitan I had become.

Here is a favorite of ours. What poems will you be savoring during Poetry Month?

e.e.cummings

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

(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