who knows

Here's how it is right now: the moon is low, yellow, an eyelash less than full. There are several bar patrons on the corner singing one of their own a boozy happy birthday (at 12:01), and I don't know. It's spring. I was looking through a Simic book to find something short and a good fit for the time and season -- I was debating between a couple that were almost right but not quite right for the moon, then people started singing so that changed the search a bit. Then I remembered that E.E. Cummings was big on spring so I pulled that off the shelf and found one with the moon as a balloon and there you have it.


who knows if the moon's
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky--filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should

get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and sailing into a keen city
which nobody's ever visited,where

always
it's
Spring)and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves

E.E. Cummings