Saturday, April 13, 2013

Spring : Poem In Your Post

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 enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

                            by Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892–1950

Clearly penned on one of Vinnie's darker days.  Suits my mood though.

With appreciation for clairvoyant friends who offer up poems like posies, at just the moment I need them.

MFB,
L

3 comments:

As the Crowe Flies and Reads said...

My, but that one IS dark, isn't it?

Anne@HeadFullofBooks said...

I'm on a poetry bender right now, too. I still have a hard time reading most poems without some commentary, however. I just don't see the symbolism on my own. But with a little help, I've come to treasure the literary style.

Laurie said...

No kidding, E!
I'm glad to hear that you're celebrating Poetry Month in your reading, Anne.
What do you two make of Edna's poem here?
What gripped me was her ironic and - for me - unexpected juxtaposition of springtime imagery with dark musings on mortality, and then her final, blisteringly bitter personification of this "cruelest month".
Plus I'm intrigued by how April seems to feature more often in American and European literature than many other months - Chaucer, then Eliot, and Millay all come to mind.

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