Every spring I remember my AP English teacher Mr. Gordon and his joy in this time of year. I try not to remember how many times I skipped class to enjoy said spring at Sherwood Island state park. Fortunately, I stuck around class long enough to net a “5” on that AP test, and to be able to recite “Nature’s first green is gold” which has to be both the most beautiful and the saddest Robert Frost poem.

An early morning walk yesterday at College Pond was poetic gold. If only I could share the recording I took (wordpress escapes me, folks): Campion bells, chattering squirrels, birdsong, and tumbling water. The soundtrack could not capture the joy of seeing the first curlicues of ferns unfurling, the breeze making patterns in the long grasses in the fields, the smells of pines just over the Troll Bridge. And the orchard–that wonderful old apple orchard with its first blossoms, and the early greens of the leaves of a hundred hardwood trees that border it.

On these beautiful spring days, ee cummings and his “leaping greenly spirits of trees” always come to mind. For some reason, I “met” ee cummings only after high school– he passed away before I was born. I admit that I still have no idea what ee cummings is talking about most of the time but feel great respect for the breathless “yes-ness” of his poetry. And lack of punctuation. And disregard for linear thought. Could I take a class in his poetry? Yes. But I would rather let it just be…Here’s my favorite, which i carry in my heart (another favorite) when I walk in the woods in spring.

++

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings
1894-1962

My gratitude today is for poetry and Amazing days and spring and (random punctuation)

and ee