this flower picks himself

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 away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited,where

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

Oh, e.e. cummings!  He questions our knowledge of the moon 

and where our flights of fancy take us with such hope.  To 

think of those flowers "in a keen city," so trusting of 

their beauty that they pick themselves.  What a lovely 

confidence that must be--not to be confused with conceit--

to see your self with such truth you'd  want to pick your Self, 

not needing to be "picked" or chosen by others. 

I like to believe that the reason we, as human beings, are living

life is to learn to be divinely confident, just like cummings'

flowers, and be at peace with the Selves inside ourselves and 

also with the goings-on of all that exists outside our own, singular 

experiences.  We achieve godliness, Eternal Life, Nirvana or whatever 

name you choose to call the perfection of the Best Self when we

can confidently and honestly say, "I belong here, in this beautiful,

creative, eternal place, because I am beautiful, creative and eternal." 

I sometimes reflect on the name God used when He was a burning

bush and talked with Moses :

"I am that I am." 

The Charleston Heston version of God kind of mumbles it, 

"Ayummh tha dayummh," but that's not how I envision 

it; perhaps it was said "I am THAT I am;" with an emphatic that,

directing Moses' attention to the beauty and creativity and

eternity of God, to that statement of "I AM [all good things]." God knows

that He is all good things, and my hope guides me to believe that He

is trying to show us that we, too, are all good things.

God wants to take us for a ride in his balloon, full of pretty people, where 

we ride "up higher and higher", than all steeples and churches and creeds 

and He shows us that we are the flowers, that we can pick ourselves.