SPRING. SPRING. SPRING HAS DONE SPRUNG.
I will not be deterred by random sneak attacks of snow and ice. I will NOT. I will celebrate the tenacity and verve of the crocuses.
Here is one of my favorite poems – I was introduced to this poet in college by one of my most beloved professors. He (the professor, not the poet) took us outside on a spring day, and had us read Mr. Hopkins in time with the sunshine.
My sweet little literature loving heart was full to the brim, I tell you.
Pied Beauty by Gerald Manley Hopkins
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Source: Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics, 1985)
Dana Bowman 