“stirring / dull roots with spring rain”

not-quite Journaling, 68

“Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party!’”
~ Robin Williams

4/2/2024: I’m recovering from a torn back muscle (that makes it difficult to breathe deeply without flinching, which worsens the pain), so my spring partying repertoire includes the occasional bit of whimpering. Still… crocuses and hellebores and daffodils, oh my! 🪴🌺😁🌺🪴

 

If the eclipse fails to art your sky, do delight in other wonders.

4/9/2024: So, yesterday’s partial solar eclipsed--which many New Yorkers (all right, me) expected to look partially spectacular in our bit of the world--barely made the sun look a tad dingy. But last month, at the end of a run, I saw a hawk enjoying the sun. Thoughts (and pictures and video) of the sighting still make me smile. Also, my back feels healed enough that I can start walking my way back to running (again). And that is another wonder.

 

The cruelest month’s (not-so-gentle) rain mushrooming delight for me.

4/14/2024: April showers have been having their way with New York City. But the sun finally came out. And like me, the other wild things growing in these urban woods are so happy to feel him.

 

“April is the cruellest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.”
~ T. S. Eliot

4/18/2024: Yep, the rain is back…

 – for Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #123: April)

April Doesn’t Always Have to Be the Cruellest Month

New York City woke up to the gentle caress of spring showers--quite different from just a handful of days ago, when we were ripped out of our beds by winds “Howling through Streets and Woods”.

I remember watching the storm half-slaughter my amaryllis and passiflora plants, and thinking, All right, señor Eliot, perhaps “April is the cruellest month” after all. But today is a new April day, and my plants and I are grateful for the rain.

Let
the spring
rain be cleansing
tears, before the rainbows
ahead.

photo by Basil Smith - on Unsplash

 for Poets and Storytellers United  (Writers’ Pantry #16: April prepares us for what’s to come ahead)

Hope Can Still Bloom Wild

I watched a scattering of clouds brewing brightly over a winter-darkened land. And I thought, Nature is so good at painting balanced music. I also thought of you and me—the gentle and the wild—dancing life’s song together.

 I watched two souls flying as one in a dark sky, unafraid of turbulence or turmoil, knowing that when love stays close the light is never far.

 in winter,

hope can still bloom wild

bits of spring

 

for Poets and Storytellers United (Writer’sPantry #9: Rabbit, Rabbit!)