I remember the first poem I ever memorized. My Little Golden Book of selections from A Child's Garden of Verses had dog-eared pages and no back cover--I had literally loved it to pieces. Mom read it with me in her tilt back chair and we learned the whole book by heart.
The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.
Scoff if you must. Call me Pollyanna and find yourself some soul-blasted-world-weary emo poetry that you think describes "real" life more accurately than Robert Louis Stevenson's sunny little couplet. You can keep your so called "Realism." Not that the troubles and tragedies and terrors of this anguished world are not real. They are real. I know that. But they are not the only realities and their seeming prevalence does not diminish other real things: faith and hope; authentic joy and triumph; waking up next to the love of your life every morning. Integrity and compassion and generosity are as real as corruption and callousness and self-interest. Light still chases away darkness, even a little light. Ugly things are "reality"--just not the only reality. Georgia O'Keefe said, "Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get to the real meaning of things." Real things, any number of them. Like a daffodil. Or an artichoke. Or another April.What do you love about April? How do you focus on the optimistic face of "reality"?
I love this post. April is the best! I love the tulips, the blossoms, and the blossom petals that blow through the street in the wind that carries smell of heaven! I love the green hills and smell of fresh cut grass. Even the most demanding day seems like a vacation when it's 70° outside.
ReplyDeleteI love April too! It's the beginning of "play outside weather" and my kids start to get really blond and really brown and very dirty. The plants we planted 2 months ago are really beginning to take off and look like real plants instead of pitifully small seedlings. Flowers blossom. But best of all? My anniversary and my parents' anniversary. On the same day. Love it, love it, love it! What better way to spend "tax day" than celebrating a joint wedding anniversary with my parents? And making the whole week one big party as we have one celebration with our little family, one with my folks and then two (one date to the temple to remember and one date just to be together and look forward to the years to come) with just the two of us? Awesome. April is definitely a good month!
ReplyDeleteNikol--Yes! I feel the same way when the weather is perfect. It just doesn't matter what else I'm doing, my spirit says "Aaaah."
ReplyDeleteJen--I had forgotten that you share an anniversary with your folks (tax day, no less :) Of course you love April.
ReplyDeleteI love April too! Not too hot, not too cold, just perfect enough to make we want to weep with joy. Even the snow can't get me down, because I know it will melt soon.
ReplyDeleteI hear you, sister.
ReplyDeleteI always thought that poem went "The world is so full of a number of things/ I'm sure we should all be as happy as-- but are we? No. Definitely no. Positively no. Decidedly no. Uh uh. Short people have long faces/ and long people have short faces/ Big people have little humor/ and little people have no humor at all." Followed by some old honky-tonk monkey shines. ...at least that's the version I grew up on. Which I think maintains the spirit of the original. Which is lovely.
ReplyDeleteI heart you!!!! Now go out there and make 'em roar, make 'em scream--take fall, butt a wall, split a seam. OK?
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