In Just-Spring, Revisited

What if you hear the balloon man whistle?

Illustrated by Colin Sullivan-Stevens

Staying half sane at this moment in time requires one to perform daily mental calisthenics. Lift the horror, the outrage, the pain, then put it down and turn to the sun, raise your hands towards the light and breathe in the pulse of stardust and coming spring.

Reactions to Trump’s indictment roil the civility of the day, shatter the last flicker of hope that our country will finally say enough of this thief, this liar, this cruel misogynist.  Even the weather is unsettled and furious, as if our civic turmoil is so powerful a force that, once loosed, it shapes the very atmosphere itself in the form of terrible storms like the one now prowling the south and center of the country, putting  85 million people under a storm watch, many huddled in basements and closets, praying the disturbance will pass over them. Or the storm last weekend that decimated Rolling Forks in Mississippi, a town populated by the poor Black citizens whose attempts at gaining real economic freedom have been obstructed for centuries.

I don’t imagine, reader, you will object if this morning I turn away from the disturbances all around us and turn us towards the light and promise of spring! Maybe you were even dreading opening this morning’s blog, fearful I’d ask you to look, once again, at some terrible truth of our time.

Thus, this morning I offer you a poem, one I have offered before. It is my ur-poem, first encountered when I was 13, the poem that won me over to poetry, to sound and image. Now, sixty-five years later, I can’t wait for spring to come so I can revisit the spirit of this poem.  A year ago, my Sunday morning blog, titled, “In Just-Spring”, recalled the childlike exuberance captured in this poem, but soon turned away from that exuberance and pondered its loss before moving, for comfort, to the mystery and interconnection of mosses.  I offer that to you here if you haven’t read it before or would like to read again. 

This Sunday, I invite you to revel with me in the pure spirit of delight and possibility I find in e e cummings’ poem about a goat-footed balloon man who, in spring when the world is mud-luscious, whistles, and children playing at marbles and piracies come—dancing.  I love the sound of the words whistles far and wee; I love the phrase’s magical, mystical, undefined call which offers the children…what?  Something as yet undefined and limitless.  I love the idea of being called to something unknown and daring to answer. 

in Just-Spring
BY E. E. CUMMINGS
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


When I read this poem as a just-budding adolescent, I didn’t know that the god Pan was Cummings’ goat-footed balloon man—Pan,  the god of woodlands and forests and nature, as well as the god of sexuality.  Instead, I felt sympathy for the balloon man, and in some way, adolescence worn uncomfortably on my shoulders, I  identified with his injury and vulnerability and found inspiration in his bravery.  Here was a man who, in the face of disfigurement, was still able to carry balloons and sing of possibility and desire.

Pan was one of Greece's early gods and there are few temples built to him in any of the Greek cities.  Pan was a creature of the woodlands and nature.  What better god for us to be inspired by at this moment?  And curiously, the word panic is derived from Pan. Pan's voice was so loud that it was said that when he screamed it caused panic in all who heard his voice.  Hmmm.  Beware when the ballon man stops whistling.  

So this morning I ask you, reader.  If the balloon man whistles, will you answer?  And if you answer, where might you go…just where is far and wee?  If you get there, reader, I hope you will tell us what it is you find there. 

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Thank you to all of you who sent congratulations and such kind notes after reading last week's blog—another way in which goodness and kindness show up beside evil and hate.  

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