cywydd deuair hyrion

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
— T.S. Eliot, from The Waste Land

Again the winds are playing
like knives, and the steel wool gray
and ominous gathered clouds
have the horizon shrouded.
The spring that for a week warmed
winter’s bones is now forlorn
and hiding beneath the porch,
confused and quite out of sorts,

proud short-sleeved glory faded,
its sun-drenched dreams frustrated.
Like giants, groggy, half asleep,
the trees hang to their new leaves;
and tender young plants, untrained
and weak, lay flattened by rain
that keeps coming at odd hours
to chill the blooming flowers.

April, you promised sunshine,
but delivered a long line
of bitter squalls; now just half
spent, your span’s sad epitaph
will read of somber, bleak days
filled with dreary, wet malaise,
seeking in vain for some warmth
from your cruel unending storms.

13 APR 2004