“April come she will,” so says Simon and Garfunkel.
Chances are, however, that even they didn’t realize how much attention the fourth calendar month has received over the years.
First of all, there is April 1, fool’s day. Rumor has it that the day was originally the start of the new year, but through some wheeling and dealing was moved further down the calendar.
Recently, some have suggested that it be renamed to politicians’ day, but the movement afoot was abandoned when it was realized that the proposal would never make it past the House or the Senate. Apparently, politicians have a limited sense of humor when it comes to certain ideas.
On the other hand, the first day of April is perfect for such a day, since April herself is always up to tricks.
Being stuck between May and March places the month in a rather odd spot between winter and summer. We have had cold Aprils in which foot deep snow has dampened buds and fresh leaves. And we have warm Aprils in which early springs have arrived.
The poet E.E. Cummings observed that spring is that time “when the world is mud-luscious…/when the world is puddle-wonderful” most likely referring to April.
That certainly is true, as witness my backyard right now, which looks like we were preparing for a mud-wrestling contest in the near future, or some nearby driveways which look like they were the sight of a recent four wheeling competition.
Even the father of English literature, Geoffrey Chaucer, referred to April, noting in the Canterbury Tales that it was a time to seek new adventures, shake off that winter gloom and, basically, take a stroll to some distant place.
The shrine in Canterbury seemed like a good spot, owing to the local taverns no doubt, along with the opportunity to check out the remains of Thomas A Beckett.
Most likely Chaucer was attempting to drum up business in the first religious walkathon, referred to at the time as a “pilgrimage.”
He stated, “When April with its showers hath pierced the drought of March with sweetness to the very root” then people yearn to get out and see the sights and stretch their legs.
And, then, of course, there was T.S. Eliot, who reached into his bag of gloom and depression and noted that “April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land.”
Not exactly the kind of light reading you might enjoy on a warm spring night.
Apparently, Eliot was into flower growing, but not fertilizer, having obviously failed to place a sufficient amount of nutrients back into his garden plot, thus resulting in “dead land” and sickly looking lilacs.
Having failed in horticulture, he returned to writing and managed to eke out a living there instead of farming. If only he had subscribed to Organic Gardening, this might never have happened.
Daylight Savings Time used to arrive in April, no doubt the invention of some Yankee farmer who figured he might be able to squeeze a few more hours out of the day.
Some have attributed the cause of the annual ritual to schools, however, a general target for blame for most everything from rising taxes to lack of morality and motivation among today’s youth, as in, “Johnny would have had a successful life, if he had only passed Math 101.”
By turning back the clocks in the fall, schoolchildren don’t end up standing in the dark by the side of the road waiting for buses. Apparently, school officials felt there were enough people standing in the dark as far as education was concerned already, without intentionally adding students to the list.
Daylight saving, in case you have forgotten, once would have arrived next Sunday, before it was moved to March.
I have yet to see where any savings has taken place, however. I usually feel as though I have lost time, never to be found again, rather than having “saved” it, possibly for a rainy day, for that matter.
And where is this bank where time is stored that we are supposedly saving? Can we take some out, maybe borrow some with interest?
I would certainly be remiss not to mention Robert Frost’s contribution to April verse in his poem Two Tramps in Mudtime. He pretty much sums it up:
The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day:
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.
And as far as that idea of politicians’ day being designated April 1, Edna St. Vincent Millay may have had an inside track: “It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.”
Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Finally, there is the most common connection, whose origin is attributed to Thomas Tusser; “April showers do bring May flowers.”
But, as I write this, I notice snow is in the weather forecast. Food for thought.
The above is an excerpt from the book Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sanity… by Dick Martin, a Glocester resident, former Burrillville High School teacher and contributor for NRI NOW.
Martin can be contacted at [email protected].
