essays, poems, cartoons – since 2007
“Spring is like a
perhaps,”
e. e. cummings said,
“hand…”
For all I know,
as luck would have it,
mayhap e. had been
a weatherman,
instead of a poet.
Poets often talk
about things nothing
know they about,
like Spring,
but as things may turn out,
e. e. wasn’t talking about Spring,
but about a hand.
But Spring’s not here an either
or proposal; Spring’s neither
but here nor and there but per
adventure thru a broken window.
kee jaa gigrrijaa filled dawn
downtempo
sound
seep
ing
ing
ing
sleep ing in
water sprinkle
plash bark dust bath.
the little ones pleach
apple yellow
irotollak frisson
bird dew squish.
A tugboat crow lands
pushes off in creosote
dress
high in drifting fir.
a hummer comes as close
as a baseball pitch
to drink from the brim
of my blue Los Angeles
Dodgers cap
(you don’t often see them
this far north
you see SF Giants
and S Mariners
and we used to see
P Beavers
infrequently, but still).
the keens and leeks
trill and cheep
haphazard lines
zig
zag
ging
spring
forth
com
ing
loquacious
red clippers and blue rakes
dark mud-brown enfilades
with light soot patches.
get springy not yet,
yet,
on the horizon,
we hear lines
of
ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee’s
coming.
– It’s spring! Don’t you just love spring?
– Winter will come again. It always does.
– The ice has melted. Like e. e. cummings said,
“in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious”
– It’s supposed to rain again tomorrow.
– But this is today! And we’re alive in this spring moment!
– A more responsible view is to remain mindful that the seasons are in constant motion, and anything can happen and usually does. In any case, from a universal perspective, there is only one season, a murkiness that lends itself to a contemplation of a dark void.
– Yes, but it’s spring! And I feel like hop-scotching and jumping rope!
– It won’t be long before the hurricane season will be upon us again, to say nothing of tornadoes. As Robert Frost pointed out, “Some say the world will end in fire / Some say in ice.” And he should have known; he was a poet. But I don’t see how it much matters, an end is an end is an end is an end, but all these literary allusions are just illusions to wile away the time until winter comes again and we cry out, “Winter is icummen in,” and you know the rest.
– Oh, you’re just an old goat!
Look at this wonderful picture I took last night with my cell phone of the moon glowing through the cherry blossoms!
– Reminds me of the time we went to see “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!,” and they burnt the popcorn. Besides, you can’t fool me; that’s not the moon – that’s an electric spotlight in the parking lot of The Old Spaghetti Factory.
– Listen! I think I hear a whistle!
I went out this morning to snag The Oregonian from its usual pitch somewhere across the front drive area, but it was nowhere to be found. It was a lovely, solid gold morning. The car windows were a bit frozen still, but the blue and yellow sky was promising the answer e. e. cummings suggested the earth provides to the “how often” questions posed by the “prurient philosophers…,” “science prodded…,” and “religions…squeezing…”: “thou answerest them only with spring,” cummings said.
So I took his answer and coffee cup and sauntered off into the back yard to soak up some morning rays. The grape I had moved yesterday from the back fence to the old patio looks like it likes its new home – more sun!
After a few Thoreauvian moments spent contemplating the grape, the sun, the greens, blues, and yellows of the fine print spring morning, I went back inside to report to Susan the disappearance of the newspaper. She of course, in her offline logic, accused me of cancelling it. I did not cancel it. I like the newspaper.
Susan tried the phone to circulations or delivery or somebody, got busy signals, but then, looking out the nook window, exclaimed, “There’s our newspaper!” “Where?” “On the car window!”
“Wow, what a pitch,” I said, “and Spring Training is underway!”
Related:
The Coming of the Toads 