The poems in Cotton Candy were written during Ted Kooser’s daily writing routine of getting up long before dawn and snatching out of the air whatever comes to him in words, rhythms, and cadences, in the way a cotton candy vendor dips a puff out of a cloud of spun sugar. These poems are playful and magical confections that charm and delight.

Acknowledgements A Word from the Author I Cotton Candy Spider A Windy January Morning Wind in the Chimney A Light Snow in Late March Spring Turtles Handoff Culvert Shadows at Sunset Clouds and Moon Toad Easter Morning Burning the Prairie Raindrop Bucket In a Glade In Light from a Single Lamp II Following the Weather Rowboat In May Harpist Dandelion Yellowjacket A Brief Shower The Candle’s Butterfly A Kitchen Drawer A Breezy Summer Morning A Thump A Lake of Starlight Bicycles on Top of Cars Two Horses A New Moon A Sudden Storm A Walk with my Shadow In Midsummer One Cloud III Birdhouse A Sighting A Sound in the Night In a Shed A Cloudy Sunrise A Novelty In a Cold Late-Afternoon Rain A Fluttering Melon A Falling Feather A Few Things in Their Places A Light in a Farmyard A Seascape Full Moon A Dervish of Leaves IV A Windy Monday Egg Carton Cornshucks A Winter Landscape A Leaf in Wind On a Dark Winter Morning Pleasures of Snow An Oriole Nest in Winter November Snow After an Ice Storm A Falling Branch Fresh Snow, with Deer Tracks A Man Walking in Deep Snow Icicle A Stand of Ornamental Grass A Special Kind of Sunset

Cotton Candy The vendor, wearing a white cotton apron, would select one paper cone from a big bouquet of identical cones kept ready in a bucket at hand, and, with a grand flourish, dip it and sweep it deep in the whirling pink strands of warm sugar, and twirl it, this with the fingers of just one of his hands, his other hand held out of sight, its back pressed to a bow in the ties of his apron, and while we looked on with delight, he would assemble a cloud, one cloud for each of us standing in line with our quarters, one quarter per puff of sticky, spun sweetness, something to carry away up the midway, held by its cone, as if we were pinching the strings of small pink balloons that were carrying us.