April

The first day of April, and a new page turns in the medieval Book of Hours. The bleak winter months have passed, and this manuscript shows a young couple exchanging rings in front of the Chateau de Dourdan. Taurus the bull leads the Zodiac charge, and he's headed off towards May.

Around here, March came in like a lamb and went out like a lion. It's been chilly and rainy in Seattle, and we'll have a wet Easter weekend. April is the month of lilacs, and the tree outside the dining room is showing tight purple clusters. All we need is a few warm days...sometimes I have them on the table for Easter, but probably not this year.

The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot is considered the greatest modern English poem. It is long, obscure and intellectual, with fast changes of speaker and setting. It is a "hard" poem, but like all great art, there's always something new the next time you read it. It begins with these famous lines:

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

Here's a link to an amazing annotated version of the entire poem. Wish I would have had this in lit. class:
http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com/