Spring’s coming!
Yes, I know that technically spring’s been here for quite a while. But northern climes don’t get to see it so quickly.
In 1913, about a hundred years ago, Robert Frost wrote about the transition of the seasons in one of his earlier poems. It still has some archaic language of the type he jettisoned not long after (“whate’er”; “o’er”). But it’s so beautiful:
TO THE THAWING WIND
Come with rain. O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
make the settled snowbank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate’er you do tonight,
bath my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit’s crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o’er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.
Here’s a Frostian companion piece (1915), for the coming of late autumn and its segue into winter:
NOW CLOSE THE WINDOWS
Now close the windows and hush all the fields:
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.It will be long ere the marshes resume,
It will be long ere the earliest bird:
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.
But let’s not worry about that now. It’s April!
It is spring and the arrival of this one is all the sweeter after the long, cold, snowy winter. We are headed down to the Pella, Iowa next week to attend the Pella Tulip Festival to celebrate the turning of all poets (at least Iowa poets) out of door.
Tom Lehrer: ♫ “Spring is here… life is skittles, life is beer… I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring–I do–don’t you? ‘Course you do!” ♬
Poisoning Pigeons in the Park
Spring is incomplete without Tom Lehrer. 🙂
No, Winter is Coming.
I’ll believe it’s spring when that robin takes off its heavy quilted jacket, hat, scarf and snow boots….
How kan ifane this spring, what may the winfde bring; Ffort up and soil fallow, find kkanner and brring stout. When we kompir, we okkur oferaetztznian power, of our kind.
Here in South Texas, we’ve already breezed past spring and are heading into summer. The robin is slathering on the SPF-45 sunscreen, and lazing about on a tiny towel.
High of 90s during the day, 60s at night. My windows probably won’t be opened again until September, or so.
Sgt. Mom, some people I know use air conditioning in Georgia. But I use the reverse air pressure system, where an enclosed room has a fan stuck to the window sucking out all the hot air and outputting it outside. It makes for a cooler upstairs house (the basement is naturally like that due to hot air floating above cold)