E. H. Shepard, “Christopher Robin”
Thursday
To welcome in spring—and to feel better about the miserable rainy day that we had yesterday—here’s one of my favorite seasonal poems. In his characteristic way, e. e. cummings plays with spacing, punctuation, and word placement to give a sense of the season exploding like joyous children. The goat-footed balloon man is a Pan figure, spring-like in the way that he ushers in bright colors.
No too many children were running around outside yesterday, the first day of spring. But mud-luscious was definitely the order of the day.
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
