Leitmotif.

A friend of mine mentioned to me that a favorite musician set this one to music on her latest album:

maggie and milly and molly and may

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

- e.e. cummings

I keep coming back to this one again and again. Am also happy to hear that Nathalie Merchant has something new out. Her voice has soothed me since, well, when we both were kids.

Audio (Interesting accent, il faut admettre):

The ocean is such a short ride, heck, even walk away, and yet I never seem to have the time or energy to visit. This is ironic, given how much better I feel after having spent time in it or beside it.

maggie and milly and molly and may

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

- e. e. cummings

Tonight I'm knitting a mesh bag from recycled cotton to pass on to a lady in Atlanta as part of a group effort to promote sustainable living. (That sounds pretty Cambridge to me.)

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls

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

Lots of folks say that we don't actually get a Spring here in Massachusetts, that we go straight from Winter to Summer. I don't really agree with that. Granted, the indicators are bit more subtle here than where I grew up, but there's still a clear buffer between the two extremes. For example, there is a gradual change in the angle of light in addition to the lengthening of days. And the quality of the breeze that hits one's back - it goes from needle-like cold to soft and warm with a nice, green watery scent to it. Bird calls and behaviors change as they move from survival to reproductive mode. The ground goes from gray and crumbly to wet, dark and, eventually, studded with silvery-green spikes of new life.

It's all there if one just takes the time out to observe.

Spring is like a perhaps hand

III

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

-e.e. cummings