Leaving the equinox, heading toward the solstice

Here we are, smack dab in the middle of Spring, though in our part of the world the daffodils are long gone and the azaleas have faded into memory. But the magnolias are blooming early this year and we await the arrival of the pink mimosa. New life abounds. Calves and lambs are filling the pastures. It is most definitely Spring.

Perhaps Tennyson said it best in Locksley Hall:

"In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."

Some wag (not I) wrote, "Ah, Spring, when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of what the young ladies have been thinking about all winter."

Be that as it may, I discovered a wonderful poem by Robert Lax (1915 - 1970), who was known in particular for his association with the 20th-century Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton. The poem was first published in The New Yorker magazine on May 5, 1940, and it appeared recently on the Writer's Almanac site:


Greeting to Spring (Not Without Trepidation)
by Robert Lax

Over the back of the Florida basker,
over the froth of the Firth of Forth,
Up from Tahiti and Madagascar,
Lo, the sun walks north.

The first bright day makes sing the slackers
While leaves explode like firecrackers,
The duck flies forth to greet the spring
And sweetly municipal pigeons sing.

Where the duck quacks, where the bird sings,
We will speak of past things.

Come out with your marbles, come out with your Croup,
The grass is as green as a Girl Scout troop;
In the Mall the stone acoustics stand
Like a listening ear for the Goldman band.

At an outside table, where the sun’s bright glare is,
We will speak of darkened Paris.

Meanwhile, like attendants who hasten the hoofs
Of the ponies who trot in the shadow of roofs,
The sun, in his running, will hasten the plan
Of plants and fishes, beast and man.

We’ll turn our eyes to the sogging ground
And guess if the earth is cracked or round.

Over the plans of the parties at strife,
Over the planes in the waiting north,
Over the average man and his wife,
Lo, the sun walks forth!


I can't quite put my finger on why, but something about this poem simultaneously reminds me of Sidney Lanier's The Song of the Chattahoochee and T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, even though neither one covers the same subject matter. I just find certain synapses firing in my brain.

Meanwhile, out there in the real world, life goes on, or not. People are born; people die. Roads are built; bridges collapse. One day our time here will end as well. Until then, enjoy the never-ending changes that accompany our planet's orbit around the sun as best you can.

Spring has arrived...

...and the daffodils are lovely, yes, but out in Texas, where I grew up, Spring means one thing and one thing only -- bluebonnets!:

(Photo by Michael Wayne Barrett, 2015, courtesy of Texas Farm Bureau)

...and more bluebonnets:

(Photo by Michael Wayne Barrett, 2015, courtesy of Texas Farm Bureau)

...and still more bluebonnets, shown here strewn with an occasional Indian Paintbrush:













Well, enough of that.

In Georgia and Alabama, Spring always means azaleas and dogwood blossoms, which I may show to you at a later date. But to the young folk, Spring means prom season. Dress-up time! Here is my grandson Sawyer last Friday evening with his prom date:

Aren't they stunning? Brace yourself now for something entirely different. Here is my grandson Noah last Saturday evening with his prom date:

Unless this young lady was his prom date:

Or this young lady:

Or this young lady:

Or perhaps these guys. I can't decide if they remind me more of Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi in The Blues Brothers or Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith in Men In Black:

I give up. All I know for sure is that they are:

And here is my granddaughter Ansley, who had just finished singing and dancing in the final performance of the musical Crazy For You, which enjoyed a three-night run last week at her school. Crazy For You is a 1992 re-working of Gershwin*s 1930 musical Girl Crazy with a few extra old Gershwin standards added for good measure. Ansley played one of the Zander Follies girls, all of whom sported platinum blonde wigs. She is shown here with my grandson Matthew, her brother, who just happened to be home on spring break from Duke University:

Finally, my grandson Elijah and my grandson Sam are missing from this post because they are probably somewhere playing baseball and golf respectively, celebrating the arrival of Spring in the way they like best.

My grandchildren are my favorite flowers in any season.

Potpourri for a rainy Wednesday

A little of this, a little of that, a mixture of unrelated subjects...

I was sitting in a waiting room at a doctor’s office the other day -- I had taken my friend who had the shoulder surgery there for his first post-op checkup -- and I picked up a magazine called FitAtlanta. In it was a fascinating article about the various benefits of goat’s milk and cow’s milk. If you think I'm going to mention any of them, you have another think coming. One of my readers, Jeannelle of Iowa (not to be confused with Eleanor of Aquitaine, the mother of Richard the Lion-hearted), lives on a dairy cattle farm. Another reader, Mary in Ohio, lives on a goat farm. Call me a wimp, but I don’t want to upset either of them!



In three weeks I am scheduled to be the pianist at another wedding. My duties this time will include accompanying a flutist who just happens to be the flute teacher of the bride. I must take some time between now and then to limber up the old fingers on the keyboard.


My time as a voluntary chauffeur continues. I will be taking my friend’s son, who has been here for a week, to the Atlanta airport tomorrow to fly back to California. Sometime this weekend I will go back to the airport again to pick up my friend’s other son, who also lives in California, who is coming here for a few days also. Son number two couldn’t make the trip earlier because he had gone to Kuwait and Iraq to operate the sound equipment for a musical group that was entertaining American troops. For me, the song of the not-so-open road has not yet ended either.



My oldest son’s family drove to Alabama this past weekend to spend some time with my daughter’s family. For several years they have seen each other only at family get-togethers during major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. From what I hear, a good time was had by all, visitors and visitees alike. My daughter did spend some time in her kitchen, but the group also managed to hit a couple of Birmingham-area favorites: Jim and Nick’s in Gardendale for Southern-style barbecue and Nabeel’s in Homewood for Greek and Mediterranean food.

We saw the first jonquils of spring yesterday, scattered in profusion along the side of a country road. One year I saw forsythia bushes in bloom during the first week of January, but not this year. January around here was bitterly cold including a few days that never made it above freezing. The only snow we had this winter was a few flurries a couple of weeks ago. Midwesterners, please do not laugh.














I'm ready for spring.