WQW #12: spring with e. e. cummings

This is my favorite poem about spring and even though the Arizona world is rarely mud-luscious or puddle-wonderful, it still evokes spring for me. And I’m going attempt to find e. e. cummings quotes or poems to go with all my photos for Marsha’s WQW challenge for this week.

in just spring

 
in Just-
spring          when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles          far          and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far          and             wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
         the
                  goat-footed
balloonMan          whistles
far
and
wee

Well, I don’t know if this balloonMan is goat-footed (or whether the balloonPerson is either), but it is a balloon even though not the sort e. e. had in mind.

(all the merry little birds are
flying in the floating in the
very spirits singing in 
are winging in the blossoming)  e.e.cummings

(One of the things that drives me mad about WP is trying to get poems to format properly and the only way I know to do it puts them on the grey background. Sorry about that.)

This bird may not be flying right now, but I’m sure it’s quite merry despite the fact that its mother obviously never mentioned that standing on your food while eating it (or at any other time) is not really the thing. But spirits are singing and there’s definitely blossoming going on. 🙂

“Then it was spring; and in spring anything may happen. Absolutely anything.” ~ E. E. Cummings

Spring makes the wall finally warm enough to tempt these two to make their spring debut.

And still the mad magnificent herald Spring assembles beauty from forgetfulness with the wild trump of April:witchery of sound and odour drives the wingless thing man forth in the bright air. ~e. e. cummings

It also drove this winged bee into an ecstasy of headfirst pollen-gathering. Our girls used to sometimes say something caused an ecstasy spasm and that’s exactly what I saw here as he flitted from flower to flower. In fact, spring gives me an ecstasy spas. (Note: going headfirst into food probably qualifies as not being quite the thing either.)

when faces called flowers float out of the ground
and breathing is wishing and wishing is having—
but keeping is downward and doubting and never
—it’s april(yes, april;my darling)it’s spring! 
 ~e.e.cummings from "when faces called flowers"

These trumpet cacti don’t flower often and the flowers begin to wilt by the end of the first day but oh, the glory while they bloom!! We were blessed with three rounds of flowers our first year here. A sighting makes me grab my camera and rush outside immediately. Hurrah for spring!!

in-Just

e. e. cummings is a poet I enjoyed while growing up and probably the reason I don’t use capital letters in my name unless signing something, although I use them elsewhere, being the English/grammar nerd I am.

I find it ironic that there are three somewhat random caps in the poem and I love the way he used spacing and hyphens as well as sometimes smushing words together. When I lived in Steamboat Springs, Colorado for a few year, spring was certainly mud-luscious!  In fact, we had mud season between winter and spring and at the library, everyone left their shoes at the door.  Wasn’t spring “puddle-wonderful” when you were a child, when puddles were still places to float boats and stomp in, rather than irritations that soaked your good shoes?

There are photos and poems that make you “feel” whatever they show.  This poem is spring for me: the anticipation after a long winter, the child-like joy of play and make-believe, that inexpressible feeling in your heart that any and everything is possible.

[in Just-]
By e. e. cummings
in Just-
spring          when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far          and             wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and

         the

                  goat-footed

balloonMan          whistles
far
and
wee

50 Shades of….

                                        Fifty Shades of Spring

It’s here.	

Spring.

Clocks spring ahead, 
	readjusting day and night (not adding, mind you!)
spring in our steps.

The world becoming  (in the word of e.e.) 
      “mud-lucious”
                 as quickly as the now-grimy snow can melt.

Laundry cries to be dried outside
      though I’d be mud-lucious slogging to the clothes line
        	   (if I had one);
      	                   just-cleaned kitchen floor sparkles
			             in sunlight pouring through glass doors.

The urge to plant, to clean, to walk/run/drive.
To grow.
To run wildly.

O, frabjous day, it’s a Chelsea morning.

Fifty is the new seventy-five Fahrenheit.
Fifty degrees of sunshine,
    eroticism at its steamy best!

Forget the grey.
Embrace the yellow, green, orange, violet!

It’s here!

Spring!

Phoneography Challenge: Nature’s tree-ts

Over Thanksgiving, we made the approximately 12-hour trip between Chicago and Philadelphia twice (once each way).  On the way out, “the big storm” was slated to hit.  Fortunately, we followed it the entire trip, picking up only some snow and the aftermath of rain in Philly.  Since Ohio and Pennsylvania have so much forest, we had a wonderful opportunity to see trees in a variety of winter beauty.  Because of the dearth of leaves, we were able to see the many nests of birds and squirrels as well as the ice and snow lending the trees a festive, seasonal air.  Thus, trees are my choice for the “Nature” theme of today’s Phoneography Challenge.

All these photos were taken from a moving car, so you see what we saw while driving, and have only been cropped. I hasten to add that I wasn’t driving when I took the pictures!  I can do that one-handed with a small digital camera, but not with an iPad!!

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.
e. e. cummings

What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?
E. M. Forster

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.
Martin Luther

Sharing Saturday

During our recent move, the movers strained under many boxes of books, commenting more than once while loading and then, with a different group of men, unloading, “You really have a lot of books!”  ‘Tis true, I confess, a vice (perhaps) I don’t care to break, although I try now to confine my bibiliophilia only to libraries, where all trophies must be returned or paid for.

One of my main tasks these days after moving in is to find places for all these boxes of books and I’m striving (with much difficulty) to winnow out those books I may not want or need. It’s very much as I imagine cutting off a body part might be.  To fill one box to donate feels as if I’ve won a major prize!  Unfortunately, all too often I find treasures I’d forgotten I’d had, as most of them have been stored in boxes in the attic for some time, and I alternately want to drop all else to dive immediately in or pack them all loving away again against the day when I have an entire room for a library.

Today I came across a fat book containing all the poems of e. e. cummings.  I almost made it to the donate pile until I committed the fatal mistake of looking inside, opening to one of the pages marked for all these years by bits of paper.  While reading poetry can be a beautiful solitary pursuit, one that plucks all the strings of the emotions, it’s even better share.  So here are a few of the poems I enjoyed today.  I hope you find one that touches your emotions and makes your Saturday brighter.

in Just-

in Just- 
spring       when the world is mud- 
luscious the little 
lame baloonman 

whistles       far       and wee 

and eddieandbill come 
running from marbles and 
piracies and it's 
spring 


when the world is puddle-wonderful 


the queer 
old baloonman whistles 
far       and         wee 
and bettyandisbel come dancing 


from hop-scotch and jump-rope and 


it's 
spring 
and 


		the 

goat-footed 


baloonMan       whistles 
far 
and 
wee 

.....................


it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be--
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands

......................

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
        who used to
        ride a watersmooth-silver
                                  stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
                                                  Jesus

he was a handsome man
                      and what i want to know is
how do you like you blueeyed boy
Mister Death

from Tulips and Chimneys (1923)

Winter seens

Fortunately I chose to walk to have tea with friends this morning or I would have missed some lovely sights.   Glad I took my iPad with me just in case!

Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.
—Wendell Berry

A plethora of poetry

For some reason I seem to have poetry on the brain, so just for fun, here are four different poems types.