What does this mean the best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelids' flutter?

Answer 1

It's from an ee Cummings poem, "since feeling is first." Here's the full poem:

since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are a far better fate

than wisdom

lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry

-the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

I'm not perfectly sure what the lines themselves mean, but I'd guess that the narrator is saying that the greatest thing that he can do ("gesture of my brain" likely means "intellectual achievement," or perhaps even "poem.") is not nearly as wonderful as the smallest thing that the poem's addressee is capable of. Alternately, taken with the earlier lines "and kisses are a far better fate/than wisdom," your lines might mean that love is a greater force than knowledge.

I hope that helped. If you need more, I recommend looking up an analysis of the poem as a whole.