Soo-Mar13 117

April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.

Eliot’s quote has me thinking of last year and the early spring that banished winter in February; of forsythia, wild almonds, snowdrops and crocus coloring a March landscape. But this year, my wishing for spring started months ago in the middle of a miserable winter full of arctic air, frigid rains and sunless skies.

Bur as the equinox approached and I began to believe winter was leaving, I headed north where snow-banks still towered over my head, sidewalks still hid under soot covered snow, rooftops creaked under the spring melt, and the old still believed spring would stir their dull roots.

The image on the left is the creek bank and the trees above it. These bare branches make up the bush of memory, the shortcut that Frank and I would walk to get to school when we had lollygadded our lunch time away. (I’m standing on the wall that lines the culvert that steers the creek as it goes under Douglas Street.)