Bitter sweet Spring

I don’t know if I’ve ever been in such a beautiful place for spring. When I was young perhaps Kansas was as beautiful. Taiwan and Seattle were too tropical in climate to have a spring bursting forth from the dark night of winter. And in Southern California, though I was surrounded by flowers most of the year long, in their contained pots and beds, I didn’t seem to give them the attention they deserve.

Going from a bleak, long winter to rose and white blossoms budding in the trees, varied greens shouting forth life all around,leaves dancing in the wind like waves in the sea, and little yellow ducklings in the pond all make me want to take these days and somehow immortalize them.

I look at the beauty and my soul is lifted up; yet deep down I fear the hot summer rays that will make some of this freshness go away and I am counting how many months before the cold north winds come again.

I am not a poet, though I would like to be. Confession – I haven’t written a poem since literature classes in high school (albeit a few pathetic romance verses). I feel like I no longer know how and have given over to much to my pragmatic tendencies. I think living in a place with seasons will help this secret desire. I want to find words to describe everything I see around me this spring. At first I wanted to grab my camera, and just go around photographing all this beauty, but words seem more able to help capture this beauty.

But, I realized this week, before I relearn some basic rules of poetry I have to allow my soul to be resensitized to the world around me. Elder Porphyrios says, “For a person to become a Christian he must have a poetic soul. He must become a poet. Christ does not wish insensitive souls in His company. A Christian, albeit only when he loves, is a poet and lives amid poetry. Poetic hearts embrace love and sense it deeply.”

And I think reading more poetry will help. From Christina Rossetti:

Another Spring

If I might see another Spring
I’d not plant summer flowers and wait:
I’d have my crocuses at once,
My leafless pink mezereons,
My chill-veined snowdrops, choicer yet
My white or azure violet,
Left-nested primrose; anything
To blow at once, not late.

If I might see another Spring
I’d listen to the daylight birds
That build their nests and pair and sing,
Nor wait for mateless nightingale;
I’d listen to the lusty herds,
The ewes with lambs as white as snow,
I’d find out music in the hail
And all the winds that blow.

If I might see another Spring-
Oh stinging comment on my past
That all my past results in ‘if’
If I might see another Spring
I’d laugh today, today is brief;
I would not wait for anything:
I’d use today that cannot last,
Be glad today and sing.