Whan That Aprille with His Shoures Soote ...

More things we like

I have tended to prefer May, the month of my birth, for its full, lush green. But in recent years I have begun to prefer April and its new green, a pale haze. And now—already!—the daffodils I waited through March to see are drying up, the petals of the magnolia trees are blowing away, and the forsythia have given up their gold.

As a work-from-home mommy, I have no time for novels. And so I nourish myself with poetry alone. Though I have been reading the work of other writers (Meghan O'Rourke's debut collection and, off and on since the Critter was born, Jane Kenyon), lately I find my mind turning to Robert Frost. Everyone knows about the road that made all the difference, I think; the poem unfortunately seems to have been sentimentalized, however, though its narrator seems to me more rueful than celebratory. Indeed, I love Robert Frost for his lack of sentiment, which is grounded in his being versed in country things. He knows that nature is indifferent to human fate, and that though it may be miles away, we are always headed toward winter. And even when he celebrates the new green of April, he focuses on its brevity.