When it’s ‘puddle-wonderful’

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

“In Just Spring,’’ by E.E. Cummings (1894-1962), a poet who grew up in Cambridge, Mass., and as an adult continued to spend a lof of time in New England, particularly at his vacation home in Madison. N.H. At his death, he was considered the second most widely read poet in the United States, after Robert Frost.

'scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D'

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls 

are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds 

(also, with the church's protestant blessings 

daughters,unscented shapeless spirited) 

they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead, 

are invariably interested in so many things— 

at the present writing one still finds 

delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles? 

perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy 

scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D 

.... the Cambridge ladies do not care, above 

Cambridge if sometimes in its box of 

sky lavender and cornerless, the 

moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy 

-- E.E. Cummings,  "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls''