Babbling: The Vernal Equinox

That bougainvillea is cray-cray, as Oliver would say in the language of the millenials (at least for today). It's everywhere here in sunny Los Angeles, its paper-thin flowers hanging over concrete walls and poking through chain link fences. It's at once riotous against the blue sky and garish with its showy pinks and purples. I know our spring is nothing like yours if you live pretty much anywhere but the southwest, but the season touches us somewhat, and I'm going to blame the vernal equinox on my lightheadedness this week, the faint nausea and jittery nerves. I've been grappling with this for weeks, feeling almost like I should collapse, that it's due. I feel -- well -- cray cray.

It's time to post my favorite springtime poem --

Spring

To what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots.

Life in itself

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Edna St. Vincent Millay