To His Coy Daffodil

Had we but bloom enough and time...ah, the time of daffodils is waning. The first blooming ones are withered and gone, the hearty yellow now is the last of the late bloomers, tulips and the first of the dandelions. Last week, in their prime, Steve went on a photo safari on Liberty (a braver man than I, but then he walks farther, which helps) and he's given me permission to post this set of pictures.


To Daffodils
Robert Herrick

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.



Gloriously at their peak are the magnolias-with-small-petals that surround the female statue that is a personification of the Ukrainian spirit.

It also looks like there are going to be two new gardens or installations in Rockefeller Park's Cultural Garden collection, either side of the street, just north of St. Clair. One looks suspiciously like it could be a fountain, once they take the tarp off.

A watched Daffodil...(Daffodilly Watch, part the last)

It would be the week where my attention had to be focused elsewhere that the last bits of the daffodils came to bloom, decking out (the drive formerly known as) Liberty in yellow splendour. Around Shaker Lakes in Madam's yard, she suspects this last weekend was the peak for the daffodils there. My camera and I missed it all. In between frantic to-ing and fro-ing I did note that at this time last week the only green in the trees was a dim haze on the willows, and in that week's time the magnolias have bloomed, the redbuds are shedding enough that looks like someone spilled a bag of cheap kitty kibble under them, the forsythia is in full fabulous bloom, and more than the willows have that misty green haze of new leaves on them.

Daffodilly Watch, Part 3

Ah, now there's something to see on MLK (the drive formerly known as Liberty)! The clutches of golden yellow Daffodils are in full bloom, particularly near the tenniscourts and pond. Shyer late bloomers of a paler yellow are still getting the lemony yellow tips starting to bend over, ready to bloom. Other sections have the daffodils at different stages, from short foliage to full bloom. Red buds are showing on some of the trees, though the glitter of light green leaf tips has yet to start. At the end of MLK drive, there was the utter delight of sitting at the traffic light in front of the Church of the Holy Oilcan, and rolling down the windows to better hear their carillon peal out Hayden's "Austria" (Glorious things of thee are spoken...)

I DO believe in spring, I DO, I DO!

Transient Pleasures.

Today is what a spring Sunday ought to be! It's warm, its sunny, and the crocuses are in full tilt beauty on the flat and on the hill in the neighborhood. I was spared the feeling of "I ought to be doing yard work" by having a day trip planned to Hiram College for an Irish music session anchored by fiddler Liz Carroll, who was brought in just for the event. With windows open, it was a lovely hour singing car trip down, taking just a basket of soda bread. I'd helped with the benefit that had financed this luxury, and at this event they went through my soda bread as completely as they'd done at the benefit.

The large room was filled most of the afternoon. There were musicians and former dancers I'd not seen in years who turned out. Participants and listeners came a farther than I did, from the western parts of Ohio and PA. The wide range of ages and sorts of people was astonishing. A wee girl with her fiddle was fit for an illustration of "cute." There were older gentlemen with their accordions, telling tales of folks long gone. There were several fiddlers, flutes and whistles, a couple bodhran players of some talent. I teased Bill about his sitting with his mandolin: "are you going to play that thing, or just hug it all day?" The button box player and his wife got some songs into the mix, particularly "Wild Mountain Thyme" which got good group participation. Mazur did one of his spot-on channelings of Tom McCaffrey, a recitation and a raft of quips about marriage, when the conversation turned to the Toms. Hiram college girls wandered in to listen, like a herd of spring fawns, gawky and graceful all at the same time, in that beauty of youth.
All that fun, and I still have more music to make tonight.

Daffodillly Watch, Part 2

On the "Drive formerly known as Liberty" the clumps of greenery that will be sprays of golden daffodils soon, most of the leaves are up from 4 to about 8 inches, and in perhaps a third of the clumps, a slender, not quite full hint of yellowgreen bud shows. Soon, it'll be soon. And the snow never showed, huzzah!

Lust in the time of Concertinas

There's a very great danger that spring has actually arrived. Critters two and four legged are getting frisky. Last year, when spring restlessness hit me hard, and there wasn't a lad I was feeding and chatting with regularly, in my weakness I fell prey to the temptation to buy a concertina. Betsy had seen one at a music store near her, and I'd sold myself on the idea even before I got there. What they had were things I came to think of as crapcertinas, because seriously, how much instrument can you get for $99? I bought it anyway. I got it home and one reed unit had fallen out and was rattling around inside the bellows. I unscrewed the ends, stuck the reeds back where they came from (they put 'em together with beeswax, amazingly) It still didn't sound great. When I took it back, they'd only let me exchange it for one with a bit better sound. I grumbled. I went to music rehearsal where Carol kindly said "Oh, I can lend you a good one." And she did, for six months. Since I had to give it back, my fingers have been itching for a good 60 button anglo concertina, and I find myself in sympathetic accord with Les Barker's Arnold.

A fortunate few in the folk world are aware of Les Barker and his poetry and recitations, moreso in England than here. Les is the font of all puns, particularly doggy ones, a dean of doggerel, and one of the single funniest smart people I know. The poetry section of my downstairs "reading room" is stocked well with Les' books with charming titles like "Roverdance" "Corgi and Bess" "101 Damnations" "Waiting for Dogot." Watching him read a poem is an adventure, frequently with needed audience participation. He's written deliciously wry parody lyrics to songs from highly traditional to do-wop, and there are several albums full of songs sung and played by some astonishing folk artists. He also writes serious poems and political poems that I would appreciate more if I followed British politics more closely.

Arnold
Les Barker

Arnold was an armadillo
And oh so in need of romance
And it chanced that one Saturday evening
Arnold went out to a dance.
The moment he walked in the room
He saw her as if he had known
She'd be there at the side of the stage
All he wanted, all in black, all alone
She was there, she was his, dressed to kill
Oh, if only his glasses were cleaner
For he was an armadillo, and she was a concertina

He struggled to make conversation
He leapfrogged from topic to topic
If only she'd say something back.
If only he wasn't myopic
Bright silver buttons in rows
From head down to toes in black leather
Could this beauty love him,
Here goes poor Arnold thought it's now or never
He could picture her head on his pillow
He'd loved her the moment he'd seen her
But he was an armadillo, and she was a concertina

You can't help but feel for the lad though
How happy poor Arnold would be
If they could make love in the shadow
And no one but no one would see
Alas, what he hoped might have been
A sweet secret was soured complete
Sex with a concertina Is rarely accomplished discrete
The dancers stopped stripping the willow
It was oh, such a loud misdemeanor,
For he was an armadillo, and she was a concertina.

Picture love as a kind of concerto
Poor Arnold his verse was unfinished
For what let everyone who was there know
A very loud C sharp diminished
Somebody said look: it's Arnold
And he ran from their scorn and their laughter
Into the darkness outside and never returned ever after
Tales of lost love dreams of love unfullfillo.
Cruel Cupid you've never been meaner,
For he was an armadillo, and she was a concertina.

Oh yeah, Spring

This is a week overburdened with events of significance, great and small. Holy Week calls for lots of attention (and odd jobs and lots of music rehearsal) and time in church. St. Pat's got it's due with a dinner party, but the coming of spring was noted only in passing, during a deep breath or two.

Spring in Siberia on the Heights is frequently indistinguishable from winter. On the first morning of spring, I woke to a couple inches of crisp snow, covering all the muddy grey ugliness of the melting heaps of previous snow. The view from my stair landing of my back yard was a giggly delight. I usually see some bunny tracks, we have lots of bunnies here, but the yard was crisscrossed with dozens of bunny trails in the snow. There were a half dozen or more places where the snow had been seriously scuffed up at intersections of tracks. I rather suspect this was evidence of wild spring bunny boffing & this may well be another bumper crop year when we contemplate hasenpfeffer potlucks.