April is the Cruellest Month

While this is but the beginning of April there are two poets who capture what we are facing.

First there is Eliot’s work:

The Waste Land

  By T. S. Eliot

I. The Burial of the Dead

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.

Then there is Whitman’s eulogy for Lincoln’s death..

 

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d

  By Walt Whitman

 

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,

And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

 

They seem appropriate for these times.