Whippets in Love--Shakespeare

The Racing Dog -- New York Tribune July 10, 1904

Go to this address to view the PDF of the page of the newspaper: http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/lccn/sn83030214/1904-07-10/ed-1/seq-50

Poetry and Weather

It's April, a month of poetry and strange weather. In March, my friend Karin invited me to be her NaPoWriMo partner. I agreed without hesitation, mostly because I admire her a great deal and I was honored that she asked me, and also because the 30 poems in 30 days challenge is a fantastic excuse to get a lot of writing done. I had almost two weeks to worry about my commitment before the month began, and during that time I felt a wonderful surge of adrenaline, a strange excitement I have not felt for some time...pre-race jitters. I woke up to my own sort of shotgun blast start on April 1, and felt something like a great caffeine rush for a fews days. It was fun. That feeling has settled down some as I have discovered that writing a poem a day is possible. A big reason it is working is because of Karin. It means a great deal to know she is there in Vermont, working on her poems and checking her email, waiting for my poems. Her invitation was a gift. She is a wonderful poet, and when May arrives I will miss this month of daily contact.

As for strange weather, here is a good reminder that April has always been mixed up.

From "Two Tramps in Mud Time," by Robert Frost:

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

April

It's April. The sun knows it, and I know it. The air is hard to convince, but the sun will charm that soon enough.


Hopping streams is a pretty good way to spend spring break.


I love these.