Photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento
SPRING
—Philip Larkin
Green-shadowed people sit, or walk in rings,
Their children finger the awakened grass,
Calmly a cloud stands, calmly a bird sings,
And, flashing like a dangled looking-glass,
Sun lights the balls that bounce, the dogs that bark,
The branch-arrested mist of leaf, and me,
Threading my pursed-up way across the park,
An indigestible sterility.
Spring, of all seasons most gratuitous,
Is fold of untaught flower, is race of water,
Is earth's most multiple, excited daughter;
And those she has least use for see her best,
Their paths grown craven and circuitous,
Their visions mountain-clear, their needs immodest.
_______________________
So, is this the Vernal Equinox, or isn't it? I have several calendars in the house; some say it's today, some tomorrow. I guess I found the answer on Infoplease: the beginning of Spring is 12:07 AM tomorrow, Universal Time. Which makes it 8:07 PM today EDT, or 5:07 PM today here in PDT. Whatever. The daffodils and birdsong around my house say spring is here, rain or not.
Joyce Odam and Pat D'Alessandro to be honored:
The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors will be awarding Snake-Pals Joyce Odam and Patricia D'Alessandro Lifetime Achievement Resolutions today at 2 PM. They will be presented in the Board chambers, located on the first floor in the County building on 700 H St., Sac. Please come if you'd like or if you can. At any rate, please feel free to pass on this information to anyone who might want to come and support them. Joyce has two chapbooks out from Rattlesnake Press, and Pat will be releasing one next December. Both poets have been published in Rattlesnake Review from the beginning, including the new issue, and Joyce serves the Snake as Formalist-in-Residence.
_______________________
LAMBS
—Thomas James
Under branches of white lilac
They crop the wet grass just before dawn.
They move smokily through the half-light, smudge pots
Pulsing against a thick morning frost.
My watch glows like a small, improbable moon. Six o'clock.
I have been driving into the dark too long.
I pull to the side of the road.
I am a branch, a stone. The lambs are not aware of me.
They have been fading into the hillside
Like shadows that have peopled someone's fever
In the shut room of a dilapidated farmhouse
Where the walls reiterate a spray of honeysuckle.
They ignore one another. They are blanketed with thistles,
A little out of sorts in this shabby light.
Five or six of them are wandering through a peach orchard,
Not even aware of my personal squalor.
What stumbles from their tongues is never music;
It is the echo of a badly damaged shell.
Now they are moving by a ditch of rainwater,
Inspected for flaws in the foggy mirror.
I walk into the field, I am not afraid of them—
They scatter like the last edges of a sickness.
The sun has begun to enlarge its tawny fleeces
At the expense of no one in particular.
________________________
LOVELIEST OF TREES
—A.E. Housman
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
_______________________
For more poems about Spring, go to infoplease.com and click on "Poems in Honor of Spring".
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)
SPRING
—Philip Larkin
Green-shadowed people sit, or walk in rings,
Their children finger the awakened grass,
Calmly a cloud stands, calmly a bird sings,
And, flashing like a dangled looking-glass,
Sun lights the balls that bounce, the dogs that bark,
The branch-arrested mist of leaf, and me,
Threading my pursed-up way across the park,
An indigestible sterility.
Spring, of all seasons most gratuitous,
Is fold of untaught flower, is race of water,
Is earth's most multiple, excited daughter;
And those she has least use for see her best,
Their paths grown craven and circuitous,
Their visions mountain-clear, their needs immodest.
_______________________
So, is this the Vernal Equinox, or isn't it? I have several calendars in the house; some say it's today, some tomorrow. I guess I found the answer on Infoplease: the beginning of Spring is 12:07 AM tomorrow, Universal Time. Which makes it 8:07 PM today EDT, or 5:07 PM today here in PDT. Whatever. The daffodils and birdsong around my house say spring is here, rain or not.
Joyce Odam and Pat D'Alessandro to be honored:
The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors will be awarding Snake-Pals Joyce Odam and Patricia D'Alessandro Lifetime Achievement Resolutions today at 2 PM. They will be presented in the Board chambers, located on the first floor in the County building on 700 H St., Sac. Please come if you'd like or if you can. At any rate, please feel free to pass on this information to anyone who might want to come and support them. Joyce has two chapbooks out from Rattlesnake Press, and Pat will be releasing one next December. Both poets have been published in Rattlesnake Review from the beginning, including the new issue, and Joyce serves the Snake as Formalist-in-Residence.
_______________________
LAMBS
—Thomas James
Under branches of white lilac
They crop the wet grass just before dawn.
They move smokily through the half-light, smudge pots
Pulsing against a thick morning frost.
My watch glows like a small, improbable moon. Six o'clock.
I have been driving into the dark too long.
I pull to the side of the road.
I am a branch, a stone. The lambs are not aware of me.
They have been fading into the hillside
Like shadows that have peopled someone's fever
In the shut room of a dilapidated farmhouse
Where the walls reiterate a spray of honeysuckle.
They ignore one another. They are blanketed with thistles,
A little out of sorts in this shabby light.
Five or six of them are wandering through a peach orchard,
Not even aware of my personal squalor.
What stumbles from their tongues is never music;
It is the echo of a badly damaged shell.
Now they are moving by a ditch of rainwater,
Inspected for flaws in the foggy mirror.
I walk into the field, I am not afraid of them—
They scatter like the last edges of a sickness.
The sun has begun to enlarge its tawny fleeces
At the expense of no one in particular.
________________________
LOVELIEST OF TREES
—A.E. Housman
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
_______________________
For more poems about Spring, go to infoplease.com and click on "Poems in Honor of Spring".
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)