[American writer E.E.] Cummings' delight in certain things was contagious as a child's. Christmas tree balls, stars, snowflakes. Elephants were his totem. I would never have enjoyed snow so much if I hadn't walked around Washington Square with Cummings in a snowstorm. He loved mice. He had a great eye for sparrows and all pert timid bright-eyed creatures.
The last time I saw him the summer before he died he was entertaining a tame chipmunk. We ate supper on the porch of his father's old hilltop house in the woods above Silver Lake. The chipmunk kept popping through the vines and out onto the brick floor of the porch for peanuts. You couldn't tell whether Cummings or the chipmunk enjoyed the little scene more. They had the same glint in their eyes. They both looked their best.
