Welcome, April!?

The bad news is that I spent much of the morning clearing six inches of heavy, wet, snow from the driveway. The good news is that Mother Nature promises to make July and August excessively hot to compensate for the cold, snowy spring she’s been delivering. How’s that for a deal?

The East end of the driveway gets lots of morning sun and this morning, despite temperatures below freezing, turned to mud as I was scraping snow with the tractor. The West end is more shaded and was still ice covered under the heavy, wet, snow. The combination made for some interesting attempts to clear snow with either the tractor or the snow blower. I think we can get the vehicles out of the garage and onto the road so what’s left on the drive gets to stay there until it melts.

mid-April, 2014: 15 inches of snow

Photo by J. Harrington

What really made me wonder about why we’re still living here is the picture above, from April 2014. That snow is fifteen inches deep. Maybe it didn’t seem as bad as this morning because it fell on bare ground? Maybe it was so bad that I’ve deeply repressed the memories of that cleanup? In any event, it’s photographic proof that last night’s storm was far from unique.

Turning to a more pleasant topic, today is the first day of National Poetry Month in the United States.

As a special offering this April, U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón has selected twenty new poems by contemporary poets to be featured in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series as part of a collaboration with the Library of Congress. Thanks in part to our National Poetry Month partners and sponsors, each April the Academy is able to offer activities, initiatives, and resources so that anyone can join the celebration:

• Order (for free) and display the official National Poetry Month poster 
• Learn how to celebrate at home
• Learn how to celebrate in the classroom
• Join the Academy of American Poets for its virtual Poetry & the Creative Mind gala 
• Find poetry readings and events on our Poetry Near You calendar, and add your own
• Encourage students in grades five through twelve to participate in the Dear Poet Project
• Sign up for Poem-a-Day and enjoy a free daily poem in your inbox curated this April by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón
• Follow the thousands of celebrations taking place on social media with the official hashtag #NationalPoetryMonth and follow the Academy of American Poets on Twitter and Instagram @POETSorg
• Share a #PocketPoem on Poem in Your Pocket Day 
• Make a gift to the Academy of American Poets
• Add the official National Poetry Month logo to your events:

May to April

Philip Freneau - 1752-1832

Without your showers, I breed no flowers,
    Each field a barren waste appears;
If you don't weep, my blossoms sleep,
    They take such pleasures in your tears.

As your decay made room for May,
    So I must part with all that’s mine:
My balmy breeze, my blooming trees
    To torrid suns their sweets resign!

O’er April dead, my shades I spread:
    To her I owe my dress so gay—
Of daughters three, it falls on me
    To close our triumphs on one day:

Thus, to repose, all Nature goes;
    Month after month must find its doom:
Time on the wing, May ends the Spring,
    And Summer dances on her tomb!

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