Blogging: Serendipity and spring

 

 

                Without a leading for this week, I searched through several catch-all books. Not finding “April” in the lists, nor “Spring,” I put them back in place. Abutting the last book I shelved, a thinnish hardback standing there--without a title on the spine, or author—piqued my interest. Pulled it down, and just guess what? A book entitled . . . serendipitously. . . WHO TELLS THE CROCUSES IT’S SPRING?

                I looked no further; this was it! The subtitle was “Favorite Poems of the Four Seasons as published in Farm Journal. Compiled by Pearl Patterson Johnson, published by Countryside Press, a division of Farm Journal, Inc. Philadelphia, 1971."

                “From the hundreds of poems printed in FARM JOURNAL magazine over the past three decades, [here are] 135 of the most representative seasonal verses. . . .” she said.

                I'd purchased this book four years ago from The Purple House in Eureka Springs—the hospital thrift store—for fifty cents.

                Since April is National Poetry Month, I’ll print a few. If you wonder about the typography, the slashes denote new lines. Somehow, in posting, the lines are double-spaced. Which I don't like. So, until I learn how to make them single spaced, I'll use this format.

                IT’S SPRING! IT’S SPRING! – by Mae Winkler Goodman

                “Who tells the crocuses it’s spring?/ What calendar informs the daffodils/ To bloom, or notifies the birds to sing,/ Or bids the grass to blow across the hills?/ What messenger instructs the buds to break,/ Or violets to lift their purple heads?/ And yet they know. They know. This is the hour/ When spring takes over. Let the winter pass--/ You cannot keep it from the wistful flower, / You cannot hide it from the eager grass. / It’s spring. It’s spring! The news has got around, / Spreading like fire across the quickened ground.”

                A RED-LETTER DAY – by Yetza Gillespie

                “When every budding maple wears/ On every twig a gilded locket, / When ponds are loud with clicking frogs/ Like marbles in a small boy’s pocket, //

                “When well-bred goldfinches ignore/ The ribaldries that bluejays utter/ At picnics where the grass is spread/ With dandelion pats of butter, //

                “Then you may ring the calendar/ With scarlet, though it shine or rain, / And run outside without your gloves, / For April has come true again.”

                DAWDLING WINTER – by Meryle Moore Simpson

                “This backward spring reminds me of the way/ The children used to think of everything/ At bedtime—any quick excuse to play/ Another hour: the drinks—remembering/ Small joys they had not told—prolonged good-nights--/ Good-night, good-night, again, again, again./ Closing the door and turning out the lights/ Was never final as it should have been./ A coyote, wind, a cricket’s harmless noise/ Was cause to fret, and I had not the / heart/ To chasten them. Now winter time enjoys/ Playing a similar, slow counterpart: / Reluctantly still dawdling in the snow/ Long past the hour for frosty days to go.”

                SPRING HOUSE CLEANING – by Blanche A. Hjerpe

                “I’m short of breath, my heart beats fast/ When nature is a-greening; / I’ll bet you think that I’m in love--/ It’s just from spring house cleaning.”

                May spring put a spring in your step, the aroma of flowers to your nose and a smile on your face.

c 2015 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press