JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Just
about a year ago, I had the great honor to serve as the officiant at the
funeral of my best friend's father. He died at 92, still traveling and still
independent, so if any death after nine decades an come as a surprise, this one
did.
While working on his Eulogy, I discovered something startling: there are a vast number of melancholy poems about April. Of course, we all immediately think of TS Eliot - April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land - and Walt Whitman: When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
But there's also American poet Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966)
Calmly we walk through this April’s day,
Metropolitan poetry here and there,
In the park sit pauper and rentier,
The screaming children, the motor-car
Fugitive about us, running away,
Between the worker and the millionaire
Number provides all distances,
It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,
Many great dears are taken away,
What will become of you and me
(This is the school in which we learn ...)
Besides the photo and the memory?
(... that time is the fire in which we burn.)
and Maine's own Edna St. Vincent Millay
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.
Pulitzer Prize winning poet Leonora Speyer (1872-1956) wrote April on the Battlefield shortly after the end of WWI:
April now walks the fields again,
Trailing her leaves
And holding all her buds against her heart:
Wrapt in her clouds and mists
She walks,
Groping her way among the graves of men.
And I love this one by contemporary poet Kim Addonizio (b. 1954)
Watching that frenzy of insects above the bush of white flowers,
bush I see everywhere on hill after hill, all I can think of
is how terrifying spring is, in its tireless, mindless replications.
Everywhere emergence: seed case, chrysalis, uterus, endless manufacturing.
I don't know exactly why April gets the greatest share of melancholy. Poems set in December can be wistful, looking backwards, and September has its share of the end of summer and the coming of winter. But a month which should be about showers and flowers and longen to goon on pilgrimages instead inspires a lot of brilliant writers to look out their windows at the gray rain and ponder mortality.
I wonder if, in the country, it's an historic echo of great trauma of the Civil War, which began April 12, 1861 and ended April 9 1865. Lincoln's assassination only five days later plunged the northern states into mourning, while the south reeled from destruction and humiliation. So many families on either side must have been painfully reminded of their losses each April.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this essay, except perhaps to remind everyone it's okay to feel sad even when the flowers are sprouting and the flowers unfolding in the trees. And also to encourage you to click on the links and read the poems here in whole.
Dear readers, what are the parts of spring that delight you, and what aspects of the season makes you, perhaps, a little melancholy?
Julia, John would say it's because we expect spring from April, and sometimes get winter (in New England anyway!) Thanks for the lovely poems.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Lucy . . . getting winter cold in April is so disheartening!
ReplyDeleteJulia, despite the melancholy, the poems are lovely. Thank you for sharing them with us . . . .
Those poems are amazing. Thanks for researching them for us! Here in the top right corner of MA, nothing is budding except daffodils. It's SNOWING and won't even reach forty today. That's a prescription for melancholy (especially as I'm trying to write scenes set on the Cape during a warm June...), particularly after such a long, cold winter.
ReplyDeleteHaving family and close friends fill my house on Easter always delights, as does the prospect of heading south to Malice at the end of the month. Otherwise I'll wait for a sunny day and hunt out blooming crocuses to make me smile.
The poems are lovely! April, for me, is filled with regret: if I had only made a schedule so I didn't have four papers due the same day (college); if I had a decent system to organize filing my taxes (still working on it); if I had cleaned out the garage in the fall, I would be able to find a hose and attach it to a faucet to finally wash the cars; if I had purchased seeds and grown them in pots for transplanting, I could plant annuals on our frost date May 15th.
ReplyDeleteAnd courtesy of my mother: a concientious home owner has spring cleaning done before Easter (which is why I spent my childhood spring breaks washing windows and screens).
Similar to how it’s good to give permission to people to be sad during the holidays - everyone around you is happy, and there are many festivities, but it is OK to be sad. Maybe you are missing dear ones who have died, or maybe you don’t feel that you have dear ones to share the happiness with.
ReplyDeleteLast year I was enjoying Sakura in Japan - this year I have loved peak redbud in the lower Midwest. Now headed to possible flurries in Chicago.
Thank you Julia. A poem that come to mind is Wordsworth's "Daffodils." It tells of how when often in a sad mood one's memories of a special time can fill the heart with pleasure. I probably don't need to type out the poem as most may know it already.
ReplyDeleteI wandered lonely as a cloud
that floats on high o'ver vales and hills,
when all at once I saw a crowd,
a host, of golden daffodils;
beside the lake, beneath the trees,
fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
then thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance
The waves beside them dance; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such jocund company:
I gazed and gazed but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Trying really hard this April to appreciate the coming of spring, even if it happens in fits and starts. My front yard is filled with self-sown little white flowers. No idea what they are, never bothered to identify them. The sky is filled with great bands of dark clouds, blocking any sunshine, foretelling a cold rain at the very least. These poems definitely speak to my mood this spring--grief over losses my own and others--the world is hard these days. It's almost like the first year of the pandemic--so much uncertainty, so much craziness. But, see there--the sun has broken through sending shadows across the lush green grass of my neighbor's yard (we shall not speak about the condition of my own yard).
ReplyDeleteThough I have heard of winter doldrums, I never heard of Melancholy April. I walked 12 thousand steps yesterday. I see many beautiful flowers blossoming on my daily walks.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the lovely poems. We also just passed the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's assassination (April 4). I feel a lot of grief, both personal and global, and a bit of panic about the climate collapse and the state of democracy. I still take joy in the morning light, the beautiful blooming flowers, the new green leaves curling out, and the bird song. Everything is lush here.
ReplyDeleteApril to me just connotes spring and yet… it never has been. Where we live, spring really will not arrive until May – maybe a few daffodils on the last week of April, but that is probably pushing it. (says I anticipating the whole thing as I view live plant catalogues in eagerness of making a new pollinator garden in memorium this spring/summer, and also avoiding starting the income tax). Since Santa’s reindeer have arrived this week after a winter in seclusion, and the herd seems to be enjoying the area where I am considering planting, I think the plants may need to be deer resident. I wonder about a lilac?) When the daffs do come out, they will bloom with their heads held high for about a month, followed by the tulips into July. Then there is the Korean Cherry – 2-3 days of the most glorious pink.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, last night when I was awake after 4am and listening to an interview with Eric Idle (Monty Python) for a half hour, wherein he spoke of the writing of many things including ‘Life of Brian’, my mind flipped to funerals and the music involved in them. We had scowling looks from the Anglican minister (who was the primary officiant) when we said that for the first reading rather than reading Ecclesiastics, we would like to have the congregation sing Turn, Turn, Turn. The United minister was gung ho, and we did have it sung, led by the music on guitar – it was beautiful. The exit music was Lord of the Dance – at one point an Anglican hymn – not sure about now, but it too is an uplifting melody. I wondered while half awake if when I checked-out, if my exit could be to Eric Idle’s ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ – it tends to be my motto. Even I might join in, death not being an issue!
So back to spring and disappointment, and cold and beautiful poetry – well, my poetry tends to be music, and flowers, and colour and light more than words. However, no one can ever top the mystery of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken’ or the beauty inherent in Joyce Kilmer’s ‘Only God can Make a Tree”.
For fans of Monty Don, and others who want an interesting peak at religion – just a short bit – watch Giles Brandeith’s interview with Monty Don. Monty dressed for the interview!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4wut3syn7Q
Margo, I did leave a recipe for Matzo Balls late yesterday afternoon, with all kinds of hints for tastier and easier to make. Let us know if you ever attempt to make them.
DeleteIt hailed at 8:15, 9:30 has brilliant sun, the clouds have shifted elsewhere, has Spring finally come?
ReplyDeleteOn Saturday, it was above 70, sunny, and wonderfully spring-like.
ReplyDeleteThe next day it dropped to rainy and 40, and we're not going to get above a high of 40/low of 20 until the end of the week.
'Nuff said.