Poem: Spring

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.

                    Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arbor Day

Until you dig a hole,
you plant a tree,
you water it
and make it survive,
you haven't done a thing.
You are just talking.

        Wangari Maathai, Unbowed, A Memoir

 

 

 

 

 

 

Danger!

A very dangerous state of mind: thinking one understands.

                Paul Valéry, The Collected Works of Paul Valery

 

 

 

Against mediocrity

But why diminish your soul being run-of-the-mill at something?
Mediocrity: now there is ugliness for you.
Mediocrity's a hairball coughed up on the Persian carpet of Creation.

            Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

 

 

 

 

 

April showers

For after all, the best thing one can do
When it is raining, is to let it rain.

        Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Birds of Killingworth

 

 

 

Something and nothing

Because deep in my heart, I know there is always something to write about,
but there is also always nothing - and terrifyingly little air between.

                Nick Cave, Red Hand Files 286

 

 

 

 

 

Awesome

Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.

Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple: to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.

                 Abraham Joshua Heschel, Who Is Man?