just because.... it's a beautiful day here and i've been for a picnic down by the river....


This begins with a glen
it begins with a season
which for want of a better reason
we will call April

it begins with a forest
where the woodchucks woo
and leaves wax green
and the vines entwine like lovers

try to see it
not with your eyes
because they're wise
but with your ears

the cool green breathing of the leaves
and hear it with the inside of your hand
the soundless sound
of shadows

celebrate sensation
recall that secret place
you've been there,
you remember?

that special place
where someone held your hand
and love was sweeter than the berries
or the honey
or the stinging taste of mint

it is April
before a rainfall
the perfect time
to be in love.

V.Schmidt

Rikki:

Thank you.

joet

Very nicely done, Rikki. Amazing how nature can spawn feelings of renewal in all aspects of our lives.

Les

it is April
before a rainfall
the perfect time
to be in love



(Sigh... )

These lines are part of a longer work. Anybody recognize them? I will give a hint tomorrow and the answer on Monday.

Tempting, very tempting, but I will refrain.

Yesterday, in April before a rainfall, it was the perfect time to realize I'd left my umbrella home.

pam

April Love
by Ernest Dowson

We have walked in Love's land a little way,
We have learnt his lesson a little while,
And shall we not part at the end of day,
With a sigh, a smile?

A little while in the shine of the sun,
We were twined together, joined lips forgot
How the shadows fall when day is done,
And when Love is not.

We have made no vows - there will none be broke,
Our love was free as the wind on the hill,
There was no word said we need wish unspoke,
We have wrought no ill.

So shall we not part at the end of day,
Who have loved and lingered a little while,
Join lips for the last time, go our way,
With a sigh, a smile.

it is April
before a rainfall
the perfect time
to be in love



These lines are part of a longer work. Salutations to those who are trying to conjure it up rather than googling for it.

Here's the clue: "You must never take down the wall!"


I'll post the answer on Monday.

Another hint - I made a mistake with the author - it should be H. (not V) Schmidt.

Not solved yet? Well, here's one more hint and I'll post the answer afte lunch (when you will all probably have lost interest).

The SPEAKER of these lines is named "El Gallo."

Is that anything like El Guapo?

Sort of halfway between "El Guapo" and "El Puerco."

Tall, dark, handsome, gallant ... gorgeous singing voice (though the lines Rikki posted are spoken, not sung).

"THIS begins with a glen
it begins with a season
which for want of a better reason
we will call April"


"This" being THE FANTASTICKS. These lines are spoken by El Gallo, the narrator-slash-villain originally played by Jerry Orbach.

"it is April
before a rainfall
the perfect time
to be in love."

These lines are the spoken introduction to the song "Soon It's Gonna Rain."

It was coming up as a cabaret song in my mind.

pam

Ogden Nash - Spring Comes To Murray Hill

I sit in an office at 244 Madison Avenue
And say to myself You have a responsible job havenue?
Why then do you fritter away your time on this doggerel?
If you have a sore throat you can cure it by using a good goggeral,
If you have a sore foot you can get it fixed by a chiropodist,
And you can get your original sin removed by St. John the Bopodist,
Why then should this flocculent lassitude be incurable?
Kansas City, Kansas, proves that even Kansas City needn't always be
Missourible.
Up up my soul! This inaction is abominable.
Perhaps it is the result of disturbances abdominable.
The pilgrims settled Massachusetts in 1620 when they landed on a stone
hummock.
Maybe if they were here now they would settle my stomach.
Oh, if I only had the wings of a bird
Instead of being confined on Madison Avenue I could soar in a jiffy to
Second or Third.

Flocculent lassitude, that's me.

I love that movie.
And it's amazing how often you hear the word 'plethora' now!

Here is the first part of T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" It gives a rather different look at what April is.

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD


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 5
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, 10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie, 15
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock, 25
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. 30
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu.
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; 35
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, 40
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od' und leer das Meer.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, 45
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations. 50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. 55
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal City, 60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. 65
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying 'Stetson!
'You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! 70
'That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
'Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
'Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
'Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
'Or with his nails he'll dig it up again! 75
'You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!'

Ogden Nash also wrote this one:

Always marry an April girl

Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --
I love April, I love you.

Certainly doesn't sound like Ogden. I infer his wife's name was April, but I could not verify it with a net search.

His wife's name isn't in my bio dictionary, but I think he just means a girl with an April temperament - like most of us. Certainly this April is living up to its reputation weatherwise, as described by Nash, and very frustrating it is, too.

Yup, his wife's (maiden) name was Frances Rider Leonard, it turns out.

I like the way e e cummings used april as a verb.



Stephen

It's no longer April, but as it's soon spring in Australia, here's another little poem to add to the April thread:

In April
by James Hearst

This I saw on an April day:
Warm rain spilt from a sun-lined cloud,
A sky-flung wave of gold at evening,
And a cock pheasant treading a dusty path
Shy and proud.

And this I found in an April field:
A new white calf in the sun at noon,
A flash of blue in a cool moss bank,
And tips of tulips promising flowers
To a blue-winged loon.

And this I tried to understand
As I scrubbed the rust from my brightening plow:
The movement of seed in furrowed earth,
And a blackbird whistling sweet and clear
From a green-sprayed bough.