anyone who lived in a pretty how town Man and the Natural World Quotes

It seems weird at first that Cummings just drops in lines like this one at different parts of his poem. But what he's doing here is reminding us that, no matter what's going on in our lives, the seasons keep passing in their endless cycle. He does this to remind us that all our personal dramas always unfold in nature.

Cumming compares having kids to planting seeds and harvesting them. He takes a bit of a shot at American families, though, when he suggests that people tend to raise a bunch of kids who are all the same and kind of boring. Parents would probably be offended if you ever told them their kids were just like everyone else's kids.

Cummings thinks of all the moments in our life as a bunch of "nows." He also thinks these moments connect to our lives the same way individual leaves are connected to a tree.