April 30, 2012

Last day of April, supposed to be the cruelest month, probably because sometimes it promises spring and then throws winter at you.  For us, it's been spring just about all month, a spring we don't usually get in quite such abundance, usually it's three days then bang it's summer.  This has been very pleasant, while  in other parts of the country, it's been soft spring, then snow or hail, then back to spring, a few cycles like that and no one believes in th spring when it comes, they just take it one day at a time and if they get snow, well, it will get to be summer perhaps before it has been spring for very long.

 There have been a lot of day of sun lately, today it's mostly clouds with just some sun, even an occasional sprinkle.  I found a poem for the last day of April, by David Young from Earthshine.

From "The Light Show"

Today the April light is fizzing.
The wind is blowing chunks of it around:
it oils pine needles, runs up tree trunks,
and spreads in clumps across the grass.
The grackles struggle darkly to resist it,
but it glosses their necks with purple and green
and slicks their beaks. I too
feel misery start to slip away – against my grain
I’m hoisted up into this giant light-machine
and swept away. My silver pen
skates on the yellow paper, my fingernails glow,
my eyes glisten with tears and pleasure.
A huge willow has fallen in my yard,
victim of wind. But today the other trees
are holding themselves up like song into a sky
that is blue with a radiance no one could imagine.

David Young

I know how he feels about being lifted up in the giant light-machine, I feel buoyed up when there is an abundance of sunlight.  Everything seems better, brighter, more centered in its shine.  It's the deep summer sky that's the blue I can't imagine, and a couple of day in fall when it's just beginning to be cooler.  The light the other morning sure made the crow's feathers shine with that oily slickness, I half expected to see rainbows bursting forth from them to banish their darkness.

So let there be light to fill up the day, wispy or substantial, let it brighten up the beginning of the week.