Spring

A woman had a seizure.
The light fell just so on an orange Gerber daisy in a blue vase.
A squirrel ran across a thick power line
and it was a rope that cut the palm frond
hewing blowsy
like hair from the thin trunk
more stalk than stealth

My Favorite Spring Poem

(with a bit of irony because I know what I know)

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

An Idyll

I took the kids today to Descanso Gardens, just outside of Los Angeles. Despite cloudy skies, the place was divine -- so full of flowers and scent and peaceful vistas that our ornery selves were somewhat restored.

The Santa Monica Pier, Costumes and Carnivals

I know it's freezing in much of the country, but here in southern California, it's decidedly spring, cloudy in the morning and clearing to a glorious blue in the afternoon. The boys are sleeping in every morning, their laundry is done with the only error being two ink pens found in the washer, thankfully not broken open, and the red-buds are blooming over the winter's roses. We went to the pier yesterday in Santa Monica, and I shot the above photo of Henry in front of the ferris wheel. Carnivals lend themselves to easy art, but I've already grown tired of conjecturing how the Men and Women in Robes will decide the gay marriage case, enervated by the spectacle of some of the Men in Robes equating marriage with procreation or as having the novelty of the cell phone or the internet. It's difficult to take seriously those who put on costumes to do their job, no matter their beliefs (I have the same trouble with the supposedly holy Cardinals in Robes in Rome) and while I've a fantasy of ordering a chauffeur's costume to finish out the job of mothering over the next decade or so, I prefer to be naked.

What are you up to today in your corner of the world?

I know what I know

We're still unable to venture out as Henry's face is so full of pox, he's embarrassed. I, being contrary, will post this lovely poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay -- a sort of contradiction to all the exultant voices of Spring (and given where I live and the omnipresence of flowers, mitigating the miracle of spring a tiny bit...). I do it, though, with a smile, so there's no need to think I'm


on

the

E
D
G
E

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

More Spring

It's my day, again, to post over at Hopeful Parents, a really wonderful blog. You can read it by clicking here.

It's also the first day of Spring, so here's another photo and a poem.







Poem on a Line by Anne Sexton, 'We are All Writing God's Poem'

by Barbara Crooker

Today, the sky's the soft blue of a work shirt washed
a thousand times. The journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step. On the interstate listening
to NPR, I heard a Hubble scientist
say, "The universe is not only stranger than we
think, it's stranger than we can think." I think
I've driven into spring, as the woods revive
with a loud shout, redbud trees, their gaudy
scarves flung over bark's bare limbs. Barely doing
sixty, I pass a tractor trailer called Glory Bound,
and aren't we just? Just yesterday,
I read Li Po: "There is no end of things
in the heart," but it seems like things
are always ending—vacation or childhood,
relationships, stores going out of business,
like the one that sold jeans that really fit—
And where do we fit in? How can we get up
in the morning, knowing what we do? But we do,
put one foot after the other, open the window,
make coffee, watch the steam curl up
and disappear. At night, the scent of phlox curls
in the open window, while the sky turns red violet,
lavender, thistle, a box of spilled crayons.
The moon spills its milk on the black tabletop
for the thousandth time.

Spring

With just a little bit of rain, this is what happens in the desert southwest. A different kind of spring.

And here's a poem by Mary Oliver:

Praying

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones, just
pay attention, then patch


a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway


into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.