the deepening ground

According to the calendar, Spring has arrived. Yet the snow today in Western Pennsylvania cast doubts on the accuracy of the vernal equinox. And rather than enjoy an afternoon walk in the “vernal wood” of William Wordsworth’s vision (remember, it was snowing here, windy, and no warmer than 42 degrees Fahrenheit according to the highly trustworthy weather app on my iPhone), I spent my hours staring at a screen grading student thesis papers. (This explains my absence from The Deepening Ground; hard to “deepen” when your eyes are bleeding from having read so many tortured words struggling to support tenuous claims). I have only now finished my allotted “eight papers a day keeps trouble away,” as Friday ends the third marking period. Grades will be due soon. And I haven’t even touched the AP essays.

So in lieu of missing yet another chance to post, let’s celebrate Spring together with one of my favorite e. e. cummings poems. You might need to brush up on your mythology to deal with the “goat-footed” balloon man in the poem. Suffice it to say, yes, he’s a fawn or satyr, like Mr. Tumnus from C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but despite his highly off-putting appearance, he represents the necessary meeting of innocence and experience. We cannot play our childish games forever. There comes a time when our eyes are opened, when we come of age, and we forge our individual paths out into the unknown. This is as natural as the annual return of Spring, and the balloonman who “whistles far and wee.”

[in Just-] 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