This week I discovered Longfellow’s poem, “The Poet’s Calendar,” and I liked it so much I decided to memorize it, starting with the April section. Just before dusk today, as I was ambling along the creek path, I worked on those several lines, which are so musical, within a few minutes the words had flowed right into my heart. Two sorts of hearts are featured in the poem.

April in these parts started out pretty cold, but is beginning to warm up. We had several surprise showers after it seemed that rain had gone for good — of course not forever, though our dry California summers sometimes feel like “forever,” while we wait and hope for precipitation again in the fall. One of those showers was half-frozen slush that splatted on my car’s windshield for a few minutes.

It’s easier to fit in a good walk, now that the clocks have been changed and there is more evening to work with. The live oaks along my path are sprouting new growth, and climbing roses that escaped their back yards bloom again on the chain link fence.

APRIL

I open wide the portals of the Spring
…..To welcome the procession of the flowers,
With their gay banners, and the birds that sing
…..Their song of songs from their aerial towers.
I soften with my sunshine and my rain
…..The heart of earth; with thoughts of love I glide
Into the hearts of men, and with the Hours
…..Upon the Bull with wreathed horns I ride.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from “The Poet’s Calendar”