For today's Two-for-Tuesday prompt:
Write a The End poem, and/or...
Write a Beginning poem.
One evening as I listened to this glorious piece of music below...
....it seemed as if it played the heart of April
and I began to pen an April love song that was never completed
This April, my joy as been visited by its inevitable counterpart; sorrow💔
calling to mind these words of old
from Eccles. 3:1-4
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,...
***
Sorrow makes sweeter every joy.
It makes sacred every opportunity to love
It rouses in the poet a meeker awareness
of the potency of ink endurance
and the voice that spills from a page long after
the breath of said author has ceased
***
This is the Love Song, revamped
because this is the last day of April...
Dear April,
Don't leave me yet,
I didn't get my fill of thrills
that the soul bares
Into sonnets of snared quadrilles
From violet-starry thoroughfares
or driveways dimpled with plip-plop
of raindrops wakening the dell
I didn't spell first swells of green
into an April doggerel
or waltz enough, across a world
that somersaults with joy's spent grief
because of little puddles pearled
like jewels on a newborn leaf
I didn't tame to page the rush
of hope as winter disappears
from the austere, north-facing slope
as the forlorn countryside cheers
beneath sun-kisses, warmer now
where mild zephyrs counter the chill
that sneaks into the winds that blow
but cannot thwart the daffodil
Dear April,
Don't leave me yet,
Because, it feels like we just met
now we must part
before I satisfy the thirst
that almost bursts the poet's heart
with art that you alone bestow;
the calm, that crowns the countryside
like a prelude before the show
before a creaking gate swings wide
to gardens tickling soft, bare feet
to fields mantled in dusty haze
to busyness we gladly greet
yet meet with half-reluctant gaze
because Time never takes a rest
beneath the yellow willow tree
where the robin has tucked its nest
within its sighing filigree
where April showers spill and splash
to wake flower-worlds held at bay
And I would be too sad to laugh
But for your sweet successor, May
Janet Martin
because of little puddles pearled
like jewels on a newborn leaf
I love this poem by John Clare
so fitting on this last day of April...
April
