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I always loved the poem by e.e. cummings that begins:
“in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee”
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Cummings seduced me with his poems when I was in high school, and on into college. He was responsible for much of the gibberish I wrote, but he also awakened me to how words could create commanding images, sometimes as much by what they didn’t say as by what they did.
He also made me feel foolish and stupid when all I could come up with for an assignment was “It was a warm spring day…”
Trite, simple – stupid. He was such a talent, and I … wasn’t. I fretted and suffered in his shadow.
I tried writing cummings poems, and wound up with … well, let’s be kind and call them tragedies marred with erratic spacing, deliberately missing rhymes, and worse punctuation.
After enduring these efforts for a time, Dr. Peck, my Creative Writing professor, suggested in red ink on one of my “poems” that I try playing with the net up for a change, which I interpreted as meaning that I should try using rhyme, meter, and scansion to write more structured poetry.
I tried. I really did. I wrote a sonnet that he marked up to show the meter. It fit the form perfectly, but it was crap, and we both knew it. I could see it in his eyes: amused, indulgent – and disappointed. He gave me a B- for effort, but we both knew it was worth less than that. Truthfully, it was worthless.
Prose was more my métier, and I was relieved when we moved on to short stories – but e.e. stayed with me. I couldn’t shake him, and didn’t want to. So, when Dr. Peck challenged us with an open-ended assignment to write something about “spring,” I wandered my way to a local park and rambled about, seeking cummings’ vision.
True, it was a warm spring day, but more. The air was clean and new, and spoke of promise and life. The breeze was deliciously cool with a light snap, as if encouraging me to walk a little faster by promising to chill me if I didn’t.
Flowers were just poking their heads up out of the mud dumped by Old Man Winter, seeking sun and life, their green arms stretching up with exuberance, their heads beginning to flourish into color and fun. The long dead skeletons of trees started to nudge buds out of their fingers, as if pointing towards summer shade to come. Birds, who had been silent and sulky for months, suddenly found they couldn’t keep still, bustling into chansons and trilling each other in flits and fancies. Squirrels capered like harlequins, arcing from place to place, chasing one another, and competing … and mating.
The dopey mourning doves duck-walked across the grass, necks poking forward and back, males puffing their chests, trying to look sexy and masculine, females turning doe-eyed away, striving to look enticing and alluring, and all of them looking like something out of a silent comedy.
I collapsed, cross-legged on damp grass, flipped open my notebook, and wrote…
In Just Spring, when I
and all the world
look skywards and seek love
seek joy
discovering it in myself, all around…
The amorous world falls upon us again
with gracious caresses and warming sprays of light.
Grass beneath me brushes and touches and helps me to be green,
reminding me to be me again, the green-stained, overalled boy I had once been.
To escape my winter shell and find my straining, keening shall…
Clouds, puffed out and blustery in pink and white finery, coasted happily past,
promising reflected glory and sudden drenchings, both.
Amid rustling sounds, and stirring smells of damp earth and lumpy grass
I find I, become myself anew, alone and mindful of the many ways of life.
The sleepy eyes and yapping mouth and rumbling tummy.
The stretching walk and rhythmic heart of my life’s song, my life’s limn, my life’s longings.
And I swim through my days and find myself in…
Just Spring …
…far … and wee …
