MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9THE FLOWERING PEAR TREES AROUND OUR HOUSE DON'T SEEM TO KNOW THAT SPRING DOESN'T COME UNTIL NEXT MONTH. As a statement about the season, E.E. Cummings' poem ranks right up there with Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and from moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

e.e.cummings