APRIL FOOL

FIRST MEADOWLARK OF THE SEASON

This poor little meadowlark came back to ND too early and when she got here she received a cruel greeting: "April Fool from Mother Nature and Old Man Winter".

Out of all the words that have been said about the flood, the ones that have stuck with me the most are the words from a counselor being interviewed about the psychological stress and strain flood fighters have been enduring. "You can't control the blizzards. You can't control the waters. Concentrate on what you can control."

Those words have certainly stuck with me. Sometimes lately, as I have been pulling myself out of a snowbank, or watching the bills mount up, or being cut back to two days of work a week, I think that my life is spinning out of control.

But I, too, can concentrate on what I can control. And for me, that's my attitude. So I am thinking positive, and I am thinking spring. And that attitude is not only going to be reflected in my life, but in this blog. I changed my banner this morning, and my Picture of the Month. I am going to write posts about Easter, and spring, and happy things for a while. (I do know that a lot of you have been following our situation, and if our "under control for the moment" changes, I will let you know.)

Since April is National Poetry month, I have found some poems to share about April and/or spring.

Like us, New England poet John Greenleaf Whittier has experienced a spring that's not spring-like:

**********

" 'This the noon of spring-time,

Yet never a bird In the wind-shaked elm or the maple is heard;

For green meadow-grasses wide levels of snow,

And blowing of drifts where the crocuses should blow;

Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white;

On south-sloping brooksides should smile in the light,

O'er the cold winter-beds of their late-waking roots

The frosty flake eddies, the ice crystal shoots'

And, longing for light, under wind-driven heaps,

Round the boles of the pine-wood the ground-laurel creeps,

Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized of showers,

With buds scarcely swelled, which should burst into flowers!"

-John Greenleaf Whittier, "April"

**********

And sometimes spring's a mess, especially if you have dogs:

**********

"You can always tell it's April

By the sound of falling rain

That mystic, mournful music

As it trickles down the drain.

We're told that we should be thankful

For the kiss of April showers

As it washes all the grass clean

And prepares the soil for flowers.

There's another side to April

Which doesn't bode us good,

When that mini, manic maelstrom

Turns the lawn to liquid mud."

- Thomas Vaughan Jones, "O' To Be in April"

**********

It's not spring yet here, but I can dream:

**********

"Once a day and sometimes more

I look out my daydream door

To see if spring is out there yet

I'm really anxious, but mustn't fret.

I see the snow a melting down

and lots of mud and slush around

I know the grass will surely sprout

and birds and flowers will come about.

But why oh why does it take so long?

I'm sure the calendar can't be wrong.

Sunshine fills my heart with cheer

I wish that spring were really here."

- Edna T. Helberg, "Longing for Spring"

**********

Some may think, as did T. S. Eliot, that:

**********

"April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain."

- T. S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"

**********

When meadowlarks come back to ND too early, they probably think April is the cruelest month - or do they?

**********

"Meadowlarks

give lusty cheers

when spring appears

when spring appears"

Buds and seeds

prick up their ears

and blades of grass

show eager spears.

And only icicles

weep tears

when spring appears

when spring appears."

- Aileen Fisher, "When Spring Appears"

**********

This poem reflects my attitude about a North Dakota spring:

**********

"When March goes on forever,

And April's twice as long,

Who gives a damn if spring has come,

As long as winter's gone."

- R. L. Ruzicka

***********

And then, all of a sudden, it happens!

**********

"April comes like an idiot,

babbling and strewing flowers."

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

**********

"Hark, I hear a robin calling!

List, the wind is from the south!

And the orchard-bloom is falling

Sweet as kisses on the mouth.

In the dreamy vale of beeches

Fair and faint is the woven mist,

And the river's orient reaches

Are the palest amethyst.

Every limpid brook is singing

Of the lure of April days;

Every piney glen is ringing

With the maddest roundelays.

Come and seek together

Springtime lore of daffodils,

Giving to the golden weather

Greeting on the sun-warm hills."

- Lucy Maude Montgomery, Spring Song.

**********

"This I saw on an April day:

Warm rain spilt from a sun-lined cloud,

A sky-flung wave of gold at evening,

And a cock pheasant treading a dusty path

Shy and proud.

And this I found in an April field:

A new white calf in the sun at noon,

A flash of blue in a cool moss bank,

And tips of tulips promising flowers

To a blue-winged loon."

- James Hearst - "In April"

**********

"Winter's done, and April's in the skies,

Earth, look up with laughter in your eyes!"

- Charles G. D. Roberts, "An April Adoration, 1896"

**********

Someday, someday I hope to see spring in England, too:

**********

"Oh, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows

Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

And will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower, -

Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!"

- Robert Browning

**********

True, it may not be spring here yet, but I am keeping spring in my heart:

**********

"The roofs are shining from the rain,

The sparrows twitter as they fly,

And with a windy April grace

The little clouds go by.

Yet the back yards are bare and brown

With only one unchanging tree---

I could not be so sure of Spring

Save that it sings in me."

- Sara Teasdale, "April"