“little tree,” by E.E. Cummings

Today, a poem to comfort you because you smell so sweetly.

Both nights at Pioneer Village this week were good fun.  Dancers in the barn; karaoke and accordianists in the saloon; choirs and piano players in the churches; wood carving, pottery, and honey products in the country store; horses and hayrides and lights outside.  Cider, Santa, these sorts of things. And poems.  People bundled inside the Small Church and enjoyed listening, or put up with listening because we were out of the wind and had a furnace blowing at the back.

My 7-year old, Abel, came with me both evenings and sat in the front pew, the second night on the conditions that a) I would read some funny ones, b) he could have a sack of popcorn from the country store, and c) he could play with my phone while I read.  Which I did read, he did eat, and with which he took dozens of photos of his dad.  Look, there’s one just above!

Naturally, this poem is in E. E. Cummings: Complete Poems, 1904-1962 (Liveright, 1994).  And I found it and read it using the Poetry Tool on the Poetry Foundation website.  But check this out.  It’s also a cute little kids book illustrated by Deborah Kogan Ray: Little Tree (Dragonfly Books, 2010).