One Winter Afternoon

My friend, Amy Dixon-Kolar reminded me tomorrow is "Poem in Your Pocket" day. This is the poem I'll be carrying in my back pocket for the day:

one winter afternoon

ee cummings

One winter afternoon (at the magical hour when is becomes if) a bespangled clown standing on eighth street handed me a flower. Nobody,it’s safe to say,observed him but myself;and why?because without any doubt he was whatever(first and last) mostpeople fear most: a mystery for which i’ve no word except alive —that is,completely alert and miraculously whole; with not merely a mind and a heart but unquestionably a soul- by no means funereally hilarious (or otherwise democratic) but essentially poetic or etherally serious: a fine not a coarse clown (no mob, but a person) and while never saying a word who was anything but dumb; since the silence of him self sang like a bird. Most people have been heard screaming for international measures that render hell rational —i thank heaven somebody’s crazy enough to give me a daisy