April means a floral celebration of renewed life
One of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs, from the album “Bookends” has the following lyrics.
April, come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain. May, she will stay Resting in my arms again.
June, she’ll change her tune.
In restless walks she’ll prowl the night. July, she will fly And give no warning to her flight.
August, die she must.
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold.
September, I’ll remember.
A love once new has now grown old.
••• The song is about the changing seasons of the year as a metaphor for the changing emotions of a woman. It is a pretty song that many people can relate to. I feel as if every April the world begins again and by fall, it must end.
Such are the conditions of my life as I get ready to return to my home in the mountains for another season.
The seasons pass by more quickly now than when this song was written and recorded in the mid 1960s. The whole album is a questioning of time and aging written by a young man in his 20s.
“How terribly strange to be 70?” is a line also from this album and now that Paul Simon is 75, I wonder if he reflects back on that line, as often as I do. I am not yet 70, but close enough to realize that it is indeed “strange”.
Easter usually occurs in April as well and with Easter comes a floral celebration, not so much of rebirth, but of renewed life.
We have survived yet
another lap around the sun and that in itself is a cause for celebration and also for other things we don’t like to talk about in public discourse. People feel what they feel, regardless of what they may think and April makes us feel “strange” but, in a good way.
For most species of plants, this is the breeding season as the spring flowers display the colors and scents that will attract pollinators. Picture pollinating bees and other insects as tiny cupids transferring pollen from one plant to another, perhaps shooting a few soft arrows as they do so.
Valentine’s Day would be far better suited for an April or May celebration, than freezing February and roses would cost a lot less!
Plants have evolved sophisticated flowers that range from almost completely inconspicuous, at least to the naked eye, as is the case with many grasses, to outrageous displays that would make a modest person blush, if he or she happened to be a plant!
It is these outrageous displays that send us flocking to the local garden centers and nurseries each spring, almost compelled it seems, to be a part of it all.
The fact that you have read this column this far, tells me that you are not immune to this sensation. But can you rationalize why this happens? What is it that makes us smile when we see the first white flowers of a shadblow? Why do we just have to pet the fuzzy catkins of a pussy willow? How many times have you stooped to sniff a hyacinth, or some other fragrant spring blossom?
Even my always angry, atheist, brother is not immune to the feelings, although he would argue that all of these things are perfectly explicable by Darwinian logic. “Survival of the fittest” is not usually thought of as being “survival of the prettiest” or the “sweetest smelling”. I happen to think that the birds sing and the flowers bloom far more than Darwin would allow.
At least, that is what I think about in April.
Picture pollinating bees and other insects as tiny cupids transferring pollen from one plant to another, perhaps shooting a few soft arrows as they do so.
Bob Beyfuss lives and gardens in Schoharie County. Send him an e-mail to rlb14@cornell. edu.