Long Skirts and Poesy

in spring i want to wear long skirts every day, and swirl through flowers.

and piles of books.

these are bookstore outfits

cause long flowy skirts are perfect for bookstore days.

we're feeling fresh, the whole town struck forth with new vigor when the sun came out last week.

shakespeare wrote: "april hath put a spirit of youth in everything."

that's another thing...in april i want to read poetry.

it seems to somehow go along with wearing long skirts.

 

or maybe it is because it was this month two years ago when i took my big Master's exam,

cramming my mind and imagination full of poetry and literary passages.

in any case, there are mixed reviews, poetically, about the month of April.

back when i took that exam, i memorized these lines:

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory with desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

even in springtime, Eliot's view is bleak and fragmented by disparities, always frayed around the edges by decay.

but mary oliver writes this:

In April the Morgan was bread. I was chased away.

I heard the cries of the horses where I waited,

And the laughter of men.

Later the farmer who owned the stallion

Found me and said, "She's done.

You tell your daddy he owes me fifty dollars."

I rode her home at her leisure

And let her, wherever she wanted,

Tear with her huge teeth, roughly,

Blades from the fields of spring.

her april is full of a harsh sensuality, a forceful merging of male and female,

a time of energy and desire and an almost violent blooming.

Loss, but some kind of sweet freedom.

and then there's chaucer. who begins the canterbury tales with these lines: "Aprill, with his shoures soot/ the droghte of march hath perced to the roote / And bathed every veyne in swich licour..."

(when april with his sweet showers, the drought of march hath pierced to the root, and bathed every vein in sweet liquor)

well, naturally, that's the sweet-smelling time that folks want to go on pilgrimages! and tell vulgar stories. and lose your virginity. and fart. 

and then there is my old stand-by, edna st.vincent millay.

in fact the very volume of poems was named Second April.

a return to springtime, with perhaps a new view:

To what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots.

Life in itself

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs,

It is not enought that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

I think, sweet Edna, that what you're saying is....it is enough.

indeed, it is enough despite your anguish.

how about you? are you reading, wearing skirts, strewing flowers?

i've enjoyed our sun, but the rains and snows are coming back. i'm trying not to take anything for granted.

blue floral maxi skirt: gift from milla

tanktop and shrug: old, thrifted long ago

necklaces: homemade by me or addie

flats: ecothrift last year

headband: a ribbon from milla's package

red embroidered maxi skirt: thrifted last week for $3

white blouse: also recently thrifted for cheap

red china flats: ecothrift, 99 cents!

necklace: cost plus imports

blue denim overshirt: had forever, thrifted back in the 90s