It’s May, Day!

It’s also Beltane. The height of spring is arriving on gusty winds. I attempted to clear leaves from around the front porch but they were promptly returned by a shifting, circling wind. Another day, another prevailing breeze. Time to once again retrieve Samuel Beckett’s wonderful expression: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Today’s winds will help dry fields that aren’t actually wetlands. Local rivers are bankful and more, enough so that, combined with the breeze, we’re not yet perturbed about not standing in a river, waving a stick, to steal a line from John Gierach. By the way, the current issue of Minnesota Conservation Volunteer has a photo of Gierach fishing Pine Creek near Rushford, MN. Unfortunately, it’s not included in the online articles currently available.

We’re seeing leaf buds swell and some start to open. Yellow flowers on the forsythia near the wet spot in the back yard are heartening. There are still warblers coming to the feeder. Might some stick around all summer or is migration delayed?

almost time to hang a grape jelly feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

We bravely hung our parka in the closet today and took out our “spring” jacket. Fingers are crossed that we haven’t been rash and acted prematurely. Now, like the actors in one of Beckett’s most famous plays, we’re “Waiting for Godot,” or summer, whichever comes first. 

May Day

By Tess Taylor

They go, the early flags, the gory maples—

so too the daffodils & Lenten roses.

Other petals swirl & nights warm.

 

Buds thicken and cast shadows:

in a thunderstorm

I almost forget the ice that was.

 

Narcissi suckle watery paths;

meadows heap up emerald masses.

How green & I want to delight

 

except this undertow—it pulls so fast

passing before I recognize it—

like souls in Dante who can’t see the present,

 

white lilacs curdle in pre-summer heat.

The parade I barely noticed was beginning

is already halfway down the street.

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