April Lindner

Not long ago,  I was in Florida, taking care of my mother who was recovering from pneumonia.  My Mom is doing better (knock wood!) but the illness took its toll on her body and her psyche, and made her a sadder version of herself.  Even being home in Florida felt sad.  Something about the contrast between the piercing blue skies and balmy weather and my mother's newly circumscribed days.  The visits from nurses and physical therapists.  The meals--carefully prepared but barely eaten.  The soft boiled eggs and canned peaches and Ensure.   This visit was like a new, gray layer in a pentimento.   The early layers are bright: Christmas with my parents, my sister, my husband, my uncles and aunts.  Disney World with my sons.   Lobster dinners on the water.  Pilgrimages to the power plant where the manatees gather in cold weather.  Boat tours on the Indian River.  And then, six years ago, my father'...

I've been a bit glum lately, what with the coming of Autumn and an elderly dog who is suddenly very ill. Which means I've been in the mood for the poems of Philip Larkin, a pessimist of a poet if ever there was one.  His poem "The Trees" purports to be about May, but at its heart it's about the inevitability of November. The Trees The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread. Their greenness is a kind of grief. Is it that they are born again And we grow old?  No, they die too. Their yearly trick of looking new Is written down in rings of grain. Yet still the unresting castles thresh In fullgrown thickness every May. Last year is dead, they seem to say, Begin afresh, afresh, afresh. I love how relentless that last line is.  Spring is temporary and yet we can't help falling for its promises.  All those tender new leaves and blossoms assert themselves and we believe in fresh beginnings.  ...