Springtime and Poetry

Finally, a weekend that was warm and sunny. I went for a little hike up Millcreek on Saturday. Made me happy! Tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer. Maybe we'll play tennis outside in the evening. Ah, simple pleasures.

Springtime always makes me crave poetry. Typically, each Spring, when the poetry bugs hits me, I search around and find "The Official Poem of Spring" which I hang on my kitchen cupboard for the rest of the year. For a few years running it was an ee cummings poem just because I couldn't find anything I liked better. Last year, I think I branched out a bit, but missed mr cummings greeting me in the kitchen every morning. I found out recently that April is Poetry Month. I signed up online to get a poem a day all month long. Here's one from last week which seems a good contender for this year's official poem.


Before A Departure in Spring
Once more it is April with the first light sifting
through the young leaves heavy with dew making the colors
remember who they are the new pink of the cinnamon tree
the gilded lichens of the bamboo the shadowed bronze
of the kamani and the blue day opening
as the sunlight descends through it all like the return
of a spirit touching without touch and unable
to believe it is here and here again and awake
reaching out in silence into the cool breath
of the garden just risen from darkness and days of rain
it is only a moment the birds fly through it calling
to each other and are gone with their few notes and the flash
of their flight that had vanished before we ever knew it
we watch without touching any of it and we
can tell ourselves only that this is April this is the morning
this never happened before and we both remember it

W. S. Merwin.


Here's my favorite by ee cummings

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
fingers of
purient philosophers pinched
and
poked
thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
beauty .how
oftn have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest
them only with
spring)


I seriously LOVE that poem. I could sit and read it over and over. I'm a nerd.
Anybody have a favorite to share??? I love a good poetry exchange.