WELCOME APRIL !

April in the Sweet Home Chicago Garden

I'm always glad to see March leave and April arrive because it means we are getting closer to Summer and Sunny Days. I must say however that this March was one for the record books - the most 60 degree days since I was knee-high to a grasshopper .

April , according to T.S. Eliot, is " the cruel month " and I think perhaps , next to May, more poetry has been written about it.

Here's one of my favorites from the first woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, American Lyricist Edna St. Vincent Millay :

SPRING

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.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots,
Life in itself
Is nothing.
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.