April is a very poetic month, and rightly so. It is thirty days of drama, beauty, frustration, and so much more. Poems about it and references to it abound in literature. From Geoffrey Chaucer’s famous 14th century Middle English Prologue to The Canterbury Tales –
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, Has pierced the drought of March to the root,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur And bathed every vein in such liquid
Of which vertú engendred is the flour; By which power the flower is created;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth When the West Wind also with its sweet breath,
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth In every wood and field has breathed life into
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne The tender new leaves, and the young sun
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne, Has run half its course in Aries,
And smale foweles maken melodye, And small fowls make melody,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye, Those that sleep all the night with open eyes
So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages, (So Nature incites them in their hearts),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages . . . Then folk long to go on pilgrimages . . .
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| Prologue from the Ellesmere Manuscript of The Canterbury Tales. |
to 19th and 20th century poets –
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true –
I love April, I love you.
- Ogden Nash
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March
- Robert Frost, from "Two Tramps in Mud Time"
April is famous. Perhaps the most famous line of poetry about the month is in the opening of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, written after the devastation of World War I:
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
And then there is Shakespeare. Last week I read a wonderful essay titled Did Shakespeare Love the Cruellest Month? by Germaine Greer, an Australian author, that appeared in The New Yorker in April, 2013. In this essay she contends that, although Shakespeare lived most of his life in rented rooms in London where his theater was, she believes he went home to Warwickshire during Lent when, by law, the theaters were closed. This yearly forty-day visit to rural Warwickshire is why, in all of his plays, the month of April and its flowers and weather figure most prominently. Here is her conclusion:
"Shakespeare’s favorite month would seem to be April, when “wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1). No other month is mentioned half as often in his works as showery, windy, sometimes unforgettably exquisite April.
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away.
(The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I, Scene 3)
Nothing about this evidence is conclusive. A poet may recollect the early spring of his native countryside when he is far away. For him to do so as vividly as Shakespeare does, however, suggests that for him rural Warwickshire was not a place of irksome exile in the custody of an aging and unloved wife, but a place his soul longed after, and where it eventually found peace."
That “uncertain glory of an April day” quoted above is an apt description of last week here in Gold. After being treated to almost summery weather the week before, we lapsed back into chilly, gray weather, with rain and even some snow last week. The rapid progress of the trees and flowers brought on by the warm days, came to a shivering halt for a while. I went from a feeling of warm optimism to a funk of cool pessimism. It did seem cruel for April to lure the lilacs and the fruit tree buds from their dormancy, only to slap their tender little faces with cold and snow. Where the week before I spent most of my time out in the garden working in shirt sleeves in the sun, last week I spent a lot of time indoors gazing out from windows, fretting over my stalled garden, watching the weather reports. I consoled myself with fussing over seed trays and potted plants, but that was a far less satisfying way to assuage my need to garden.
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| A bit of April glory. |
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| My plum tree - always the first to bloom. |
I planted trays with tomatoes and peppers on Monday. My growing station in the woodshed is filling up quickly. I will start more seed trays every week from now until late May. To make room for new trays under the lights on the heat mats, I need to move the already started trays out to other places. That means I need steady warmer weather to settle in that will allow me to put seed starts on the back porch shelves and the stairs. I hope that happens soon. I’m running out of room.
Tuesday morning we woke up to find a dusting of snow on everything. It was 31° with light flurries falling and my mood was as gloomy as the weather. The high temperature that day only reached 36°. I wasn’t in school that day and was home by myself, so I tried to brighten my mood by watching my favorite show, the BBC’s Gardeners’ World. I think Monty Don, the host of the show, is great. I learn new things in almost every episode. Some day I would love to visit Monty’s beautiful gardens at his home, Long Meadow, in Herefordshire, England. Gardeners’ World has been on the air for 55 years and Monty Don has been its host since 2011. I started watching it three years ago. The show runs from mid-March to late October on Friday evenings on BBC Two. I have to wait a day or two for it to show up on Prime Video. Watching it on Tuesday, with snow flurries swirling outside the window, did lift my spirits for an hour, but when it was done, my frustration returned. All afternoon and into the evening it snowed. It didn’t amount to much, but it was aggravating to see it.
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| Tuesday morning. |
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| Monty Don in his fabulous garden at Long Meadow. |
All was not aggravation and frustration on Tuesday night. Our ninth grandchild was born that night. Raven gave birth by caesarean section to a tiny 4 lb. 13 oz., 18.8" long precious baby girl. They’ve named her Thistle Wren Howe. We are delighted and so happy that all turned out well for Raven and the baby. There were a lot of prayers offered for them and they had their effect.
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| Daniel, Raven, and Thistle. |
On Wednesday morning again there was a thin crust of snow on the ground. It didn’t last long as the temperature began to warm once more. By noon the thermometer had climbed to 50° and I ventured out to see what condition the garden was in after the cold spell. Things looked pretty good. A few daffodils had toppled over from the weight of the snow, but that was all. I spent the rest of the afternoon weeding flower beds.
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| Wednesday morning. |
Thursday morning I drove up to Wellsville to run errands. I picked up books at the library that I had on hold. I bought chicken feed. On the way back, I stopped at the creamery for milk. When I left home, it was raining, but on my drive home the sun came out and I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the earth. After long, drab, mostly brown and gray winter months, the world is in full color again. The maples and other trees blooming in the forests on the hills are a hundred shades of green and red and chartreuse. The fields and lawns are green again. In yards I could see from the road, magnolias, forsythias, and ornamental trees were in flower, and there were so many daffodils. This is a glorious time of year.
On Friday afternoon we left to go down to the Thayn’s for the weekend. The Fosters had already arrived earlier in the day. We had two special reasons to go this time. Hazel and June were in a production of the play Mary Poppins Jr. They auditioned for this play back in January and they rehearsed for months. The play ran for just one weekend with a performance on Friday afternoon and evening and on Saturday afternoon. We went to the Saturday performance. It was really great. It was fun to see Hazel and June on stage.
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| Hazel is in front, second from the left, June is fourth from the left. |
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| Hazel is the second bee on the left, June is the third chimney sweep on right. |
The second reason for our trip south was for Mabel’s sixth birthday. Mabel had made lots of plans for her birthday. She wanted to go on the Incline in Pittsburgh, so after the play, we drove into downtown Pittsburgh and rode the Duquesne Incline. I do not do well with things like that – heights, a steep track, an antique tram car, but earlier in the week when the Thayn’s were discussing how Grandpa might be afraid on the Incline, Florence, who is three, told them that she would hold Grandpa’s hand and then he wouldn’t be afraid. So she held my hand and I did okay. The view of the city from the top of the Incline was spectacular. After the Incline, we went to a restaurant that Mabel chose, Time Out Time Eat, and had a great dinner followed by delicious ice cream at Graeter’s. An excellent day.
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| Mabel's sixth birthday. |
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| Waiting to ride the Incline. |
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| Florence holding my hand on the Incline. Can you tell I was still nervous? |
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| The view from the top of the Incline. |
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| At the top of the Incline. |
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| At dinner. |
Today we went to church and afterward had lunch. After lunch we had a short musical session. Then we headed home. We arrived here about an hour ago. The weekend passed so quickly. It seems we just left and here we are home again. We had a wonderful time, as we always do when we are together. And we have plans to be together again in the not too distant future. I can hardly wait.
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| Grandpa and Russell ready for church. |
