Pix Of The Day: April Is The Cruellest Month
CREDIT: © Ian Scott-Parker/PishTush.com
WHERE: Hurricane, Utah. WHAT: personal loss in the Springtime.
MAP: Hurricane, Utah, USA. Thumbnail clicks [1][2][3] pop-up larger images.

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

The opening to T.S. Eliot's poem 'The Wasteland' has always seemed perverse: surely, is April not a wonderful month, filled with blossom, Spring flowers, and new life as the earth warms again after winter? The description holds true for the Northern Hemisphere, at least. This year, on Monday of the last full week of the month, we lost our dear companion Oreo; and on Sunday the tree surgeon arrived to fell the poplars at the side of the house. To lose both dog and trees in the same week does indeed make April seem the cruelest month, though it worries us that there is still plenty of scope for worse in the eight months of the year that remain.

Perhaps the bleakness of Winter makes life's vicissitudes harder to bear, and with warm weather and blue skies things will not seem so bad. Oreo's ashes came home on Friday, and will be sprinkled in her favorite sleeping spot, just beside the new flower bed. The neighbor across the street was glad of the logs, which he will split and dry for burning in his wood stove next Winter. The next door neighbor will rest easy on windy nights, knowing there are no branches to come crashing down on his car.

Life goes on: perhaps Eliot's closing line is more hopeful.

Shantih shantih shantih

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