Nothing if not Punctual

Now that Spring is here, Clive spends much of his time sitting on a park bench with a lady librarian of his acquaintance. This paragon of librarian-ly loveliness introduces Clive to the poetry of E. E. Cummings, but Clive is distressed by the poet’s unorthodox use of punctuation. The birds sing in the trees, the green world revives itself, lovers stroll arm in arm, but when this beauteous queen of the bookshelves shows him the lines

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Clive merely says: “There should be a full stop there.”

“I think you’re missing the point,” she says.