THE WONDER OF APRIL

 

Did you know that April is national poetry month?  It's a good choice. 

Chaucer (c 1340-1400) begins The Canterbury Tales in April.  "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote / The droght of March hath perced to the roote . . . " Many of us read those lines in high school.  I taught my seniors how to pronounce the Middle English vowels.  "When April with his showers sweet with fruit / The drought of March has pierced unto the root / And bathed each vein with liquor that has power / To generate therein and sire the flower . . . ,"  is when Christians make a pilgrimage to Canterbury, where Saint Thomas Beckett (1119-1170) was martyred for his faith.  That's Chaucer's story.

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), on the other hand, subverts Chaucer.  He writes in The Wasteland, "April is the cruelest month, breeding / lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / memory and desire, stirring / dull roots with spring rain."  Chaucer sees only the beauty of April. Writing after World War I, Eliot reveals the cruelty of the hope for springtime renewal in a world shattered by war.  

We can identify with that.  We see Gaza in rubble and Ukraine under siege.  And more. Daily, drones and bombs destroy all that lives.  Home is under strife as well.  There are places the spring rain won't touch.  Winter is not so cruel, Eliot writes.  "Winter kept us warm, covering / Earth in forgetful snow. . . " Snow obscures detritus.  It is easier to forget than to remember sometimes.  Easier to ignore than to notice.  

And yet, this April we have our own back yards, roadsides and parks fragrant with lavender wisteria and wildflowers blooming from the very cracks in the brick.  Or maybe you live where the prickly pear flower.  Or you may be feeling like Count Basie's 1956 jazz version of "April in Paris" with chestnuts in blossom.  

Ada Limón (b.1976) is our nation's poet laureate.  For poetry month she has tackled an ambitious project, reading poetry in National Parks.  Here are lines from one of her prose poems: 

The way I remember the name forsythia is that when my stepmother, Cynthia, was dying, that last week, she said lucidly, but mysteriously, MORE YELLOW.  And I thought yes, more yellow and nodded because I agreed.  Of course, more yellow.  And so now in my head, when I see that yellow tangle, I say 'For Cynthia, for Cynthia, forsythia, forsythia, more yellow.'  It is night now.  And the owl never comes, only more of night and what repeats in the night.  ©2022, Ada Limón

Such a conversational poem.  "More yellow," sounds like just the thing to say when dying.  "Of course, more yellow," the poet repeats.  Living or dying, who wouldn't want more yellow?  As my mother rested in a dark room, she suddenly said with great feeling, "All the lights are on."  "Where are you mom?" I wondered aloud.  "In heaven," she replied, not missing a beat.  The perfect setting for the sweeping branches of sunny spring forsythia.  "Light! More light!" was the last entreaty of the poet Goethe (1749-1832) as he lay on his deathbed.  Yes, yes, more yellow.  

We could study poetry all April.  Then May, then June. Matching our breathing to the rhythm of the lines.  Making connections.  Being enthralled at no cost at all but for time.  Covering ourselves with words that, like a blanket of snow, blot out the ugliness of aggression and starvation. killing and over-killing, narcissism and vulgarity, felony counts and delays.  

The wonder of April.  The wonder of poetry.  The wonder of color and light and renewal and the Resurrection of the body which happened just a few Sundays ago.  The wonder of words and the Word made flesh.  The wonder of night and what repeats in the night.  Oh, the wonder . . . 

With love, Nina Naomi