Poetry Month #2: Maggie and Millie and Molly and May by e.e. cummings

Update April 1, 2020 - for years I've wanted to make it through the entire month of April, posting a poem a day. This year, with the aid of a pandemic that has dramatically increased my available time, I'm trying again.

It's time to celebrate poetry. The next 30 days will honor poems that have been my favorites for many years and some that are recent friends.

This poem comes from e. e. cummings who began writing poems when he was 10.  The poem's easy, playful rhyme is like a day at the beach and yet each of the four girls find very different things during their day of play.  Fate or happenstance?  

For me, the last line is a powerful reminder of the way the Universe works, for we always find ourselves regardless of what sea we visit.

Click here to listen to a choral recording from composer and conductor Eric Whiteacre. maggie and milly and molly and may e.e. cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may went down to the beach(to play one day) and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and milly befriended a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were; and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone. For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) it's always ourselves we find in the sea