Today is the first day of spring for me. It has sprung at last! It’s 60° outside for the first time in months, the snow is melting, and the spell is breaking over my own little Narnia. My heart rejoices!
To celebrate, my friend Wendy and I took my dog Joyful and went for a walk outside. The snow-covered hills that the children were sledding on yesterday are no longer white, but green! There are puddles everywhere. Wendy was puddle jumping — the water splashed up, and the droplets shone out! Joyful trotted along, her tail wagging, her little miniature dachshund body thrilled with delight at the warmth and light.
Our simple adventure reminded me of a gospel song we both knew from church, pretty much an old-school song, but it captured the moment:
He has made me glad!
He has made me glad!
He has made me glad!
I will rejoice for He has made me glad!
I will enter His gates with Thanksgiving in my heart!
I will enter his courts with praise!
I will say this is the day that the Lord has made!
I will rejoice for he has made me glad!
Do you know how that one goes? 😉
When we came home, we opened all the windows, and the fresh air blew through the house. I turned on Josh Groban’s CD “Awake,” and music and Italian lyrics filled the house. I gave serious thought to the possibility of French pedicure and sandals for the rest of the day!
There are poems for this kind of happiness, like this one:
To John Keats, Poet, at Spring Time
I cannot hold my peace, John Keats;
There never was a spring like this;
It is an echo, that repeats
My last year’s song and next year’s bliss.
I know, in spite of all men say
Of Beauty, you have felt her most.
Yea, even in your grave her way
Is laid. Poor, troubled, lyric ghost,
Spring never was so fair and dear
As Beauty makes her seem this year.
I cannot hold my peace, John Keats,
I am as helpless in the toil
Of Spring as any lamb that bleats
To feel the solid earth recoil
Beneath his puny legs. Spring beats
her tocsin call to those who love her,
And lo! the dogwood petals cover
Her breast with drifts of snow, and sleek
White gulls fly screaming to her, and hover
About her shoulders, and kiss her cheek,
While white and purple lilacs muster
A strength that bears them to a cluster
Of color and odor; for her sake
All things that slept are now awake.
And you and I, shall we lie still,
John Keats, while Beauty summons us?
Somehow I feel your sensitive will
Is pulsing up some tremulous
Sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves
Grow music as they grow, since your
Wild voice is in them, a harp that grieves
For life that opens death’s dark door.
Though dust, your fingers still can push
The Vision Splendid to a birth,
Though now they work as grass in the hush
Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.
“John Keats is dead,” they say, but I
Who hear your full insistent cry
In bud and blossom, leaf and tree,
Know John Keats still writes poetry.
And while my head is earthward bowed
To read new life sprung from your shroud,
Folks seeing me must think it strange
That merely spring should so derange
My mind. They do not know that you,
John Keats, keep revel with me, too.
Countee Cullen
Isn’t that a beautiful one? I love it because it pays honor to a poet, to beauty, to spring … to life! L’chaim!!!
There are songs for this kind of happiness too, like Vivaldi’s “Spring.“
THE POETRY PLACE 