Try reading this poem out loud.

When faces called flowers float out of the ground
and breathing is wishing and wishing is having—
but keeping is downward and doubting and never
it's april (yes, april, my darling) it's spring!
yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly
yes the little fish gamble as glad as can be
(yes the mountains are dancing together)

when every leaf opens without any sound
and wishing is having and having is giving—
 and keeping is dotingand nothing and nonsense
—alive, we're alive, dear: it's (kiss me now) spring!
now the pretty birds hover so she and so he
now the little fish quiver so you and so i
(now the mountains are dancing, the mountains)

when more than was lost has been found, has been found
and having is giving and giving is living—
but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing
—it's spring (all our night becomes day) o, it's spring!
all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky
all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea
(all the mountains are dancing; are dancing)
                                     --E. E. Cummings

This poem feels like wholehearted, emotional surrender. He’s feeling it and he wants us to feel it too. Spring wakes us up just like it wakes all the natural world, if we aren’t too afraid to let it. It renews animals and weather and also our energies and desires.

I like the transformation from wishing to having to giving to living. Spring expands our sense of what is possible, turns night to day and loss to abundance. The shrinking and doubting and darkness of winter give way to excitement and buoyant playfulness.

Possessing this beauty, this energy is pointless; keeping spring to ourselves cancels out its abundance. We cannot keep this aliveness, but we can participate in it. We join in with spring’s joy by giving.

When more than was lost has been found, has been found! Is this even possible? Yes, the yes is insistent in the poem; spring performs miracles.

Come away, my beloved, it’s spring!

–Liz

P. S. Edward Estlin Cummings did not have his name legally put into lowercase. Norman Friedman says his name should be written and printed with the usual capital letters. His use of uncapitalized words, uncommon spacing, punctuation and parenthesis, not to mention grammar and syntax, is simply poetic license. Mr. Cummings (1894-1962) actively wrote poems throughout his entire life. He lived and wrote in New York City’s Greenwich Village and on a farm in New Hampshire.