365 Project: April

April played games with us, veering from unseasonable warmth to frost-warning level cold then back to glorious sunshine.Flowers are beginning to bloom, and spring is a go once more. Since April was National Poetry Month, I thought I'd intersperse images and verse. Add in the scent of lilacs and the sound of birdsong, and you'll capture the essence of April's quirky charm.

"The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
a cloud come over the sunlit arch,
And wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March."
- Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time

Glimpses of Green

"Let the rain kiss you.

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night--

And I love the rain."

-Langston Hughes, April Rain Song

April Showers

"This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,

Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,

Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between

Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.


I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration

Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze

Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,

Faces of people streaming across my gaze."

- D. H. Lawrence, The Enkindled Spring

Furry Coat and Gauzy Wing

“Blown bubble-film of blue, the sky wraps round
Weeds of warm light whose every root and rod
Splutters with soapy green, and all the world
Sweats with the bead of summer in its bud.”-Laurie Lee, April Rise

Bursting

"Is it so small a thing

To have enjoyed the sun,

To have lived light in the spring,

To have loved, to have thought, to have done?"
-
Matthew Arnold, Empedocles on Etna

Learning


You can see a slideshow of the 30 April photos here or view all of my 2010 photos to date here.

The three groups to which I contribute are 2010/365, EdTech 365/2010, and Project 365.