“Behold Me! I Am May!”
Greetings Word Lovers, what are you working on today?
Has Spring inspired a Villanelle, Sonnet, a greening blank verse, or a rap to Spring (zing! Pop! Plush! Sting!)?
I imagine Wendell Berry is in his field running soil through his hands. I imagine Stanley Kunitz loved the feel of dirt and searched for signs of life in his Provincetown garden. I know Mary Oliver is out in the woods touching trees, watching for the fox, snake, owl, present in “the ecstacy of paying attention.” (Annie Dillard) Charles Wright’s poem, “Yard Work”, which appears in Negative Blue, ends with these lines:
my job is yard work –
I take this inchworm, for instance, and move it
from here to there
Has Mother Nature left seeds of poems scattered in your notebook? My husband has four green thumbs (just kidding). Our garden is sanctuary for him. He planted dahlia bulbs today. I threw myself on the grass and recited to the sky, “i thank you god, for most this amazing day,” a perfect Spring poem by e.e. cummings. I let it rip at all occasions, weddings, Baptisms, funerals, walks, and during garden chores.
I sat down at my dining room table to write May’s column intending the subject to be grief. There have been two family deaths in Minnesota; February 2, and March 18. (The temperature in February was 35 below zero.) I had my resources at hand. I taught a class in Minnesota, titled, Healing Words. It was all there. Then my muse let me know I am not in charge. (I was certain I was.) Outside the door, a blue bird did a quick splash in the blue bird bath. A bully robin scared her off. Then a gray-tufted tit mouse appeared and stamped his feet in the grass.
When I walk out the front door, I dodge black bumble bees, butterflies and wasps, each intent on sucking every last drop of nectar from the plum and peach tree blossoms.
What am I working on? I’m learning to let the muse have her way. I’m learning to get out of the way and let words work. Writer, get out of the way. Read other poet’s words on Spring. Walk a forest trail. Visit the Arboretum. Bring your notebook, a pencil. Let words have their say.
Spring in Carolina
Verses by Henry Timrod (1829-1867)
Spring, with that nameless pathos in the air
Which dwells with all things fair,
Spring with her golden suns and silver rain
Is with us once again.
In the deep heart of every forest tree
The blood is all aglee,
And there’s a look about the leafless bowers
As if they dreamed of flowers.
In gardens you may note amid the dearth,
The crocus breaking earth;
And near the snowdrop’s tender white and green,
The violet in its screen.
Still there’s a sense of blossoms yet unborn
In the sweet airs of morn;
One almost looks to see the very street
Grow purple at his feet.
Some wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start,
If from a beech’s heart,
A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say,
“Behold me! I am May!”
I was certain I was going to write about my Father-in-Law, fellow poet, and pen-pal. I was certain I wanted to tell you about Lois, my Mother-In-Law, who wore turquoise. Instead, those damn birds showed up, singing and stamping their feet. The sun came out, we mowed the grass, ran the sprinkler; ate asparagus in the yard. It’s Spring’s fault.
