Spring is when...
“I come into myself.
I leaf gigantically.”*
I really love spring, and by this time each year, I always seem to have forgotten just how special springtime always feels. For a few weeks now, I’ve been joking with my friend about how psychotic Mother Nature has been in the run-up to spring here in Ontario’s deep south. Today provided a snapshot of her craziest behaviour; bright sunshine, extremely high winds, rain and thunderstorms, more bright sunshine… But, at a whopping 15℃ - all I can say is welcome, spring, it’s delightful to feel your warmth on my cheeks.
Today was my first solo outing of 2023 - Hillman Marsh Conservation Area, Port of Wheatley, Hillman again, and an interlude with the Angel Wing beauties at Jack Miner. I definitely came into myself whilst exploring and I can’t tell you how wondrously exceptional today felt.
This poor young lad is suffering from Angel Wing syndrome and it is incurable. He cannot fly.
As soon as I feel reunited and realigned with nature, my soul feels light and expansive and I leaf gigantically.
Poetry is my preferred reading. Has been, since about the fifth grade. In grade ten, at Wexford CI, I was one of the luckiest ones, I was assigned to Mrs. Nelson’s English class. She remains to this day one of my very favourite teachers and mentors. Mrs. Nelson was a local - we’d often bump into her whilst shopping at K-Mart and Steinberg’s at the Parkway Plaza - which made her feel like one of us. She was always kind and friendly to my mum and dad, and patient, helpful and encouraging - often in a teasing manner - to me. As to my fondness for poetry, Mrs. Nelson always said that my preference was twofold; because I was a lazy reader - I could quickly read a poem and get right onto analysing it for an assignment or essay, and because I loved music so much - the cadence of poetry dovetailed into that passion.
One of my favourite poems is “It Is Difficult To Speak Of The Night” by American Poet Jack Gilbert. Written in handsome calligraphy, this beautiful poem was a gift to me, in my grade ten, third-term report card, from Mrs. Nelson. Confession - at first I neither fully understood nor appreciated it’s wisdom and elegance - middle age seemed impossibly far off.
In his eighty-seven years, Mr. Gilbert wrote hundreds of poems, published five anthologies, and won many prizes, notably the Pulitzer (twice), the Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Poetry Review Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Yet, despite his prolificacy and accolades, very few people know of or have read any of his work.
It surprised me that “It Is Difficult To Speak Of The Night” was never published in any of Mr. Gilbert’s books of poetry. According to The Library of Congress, it is an uncollected poem; it was not published in any of his poetry anthologies. The poem was first and only published in the January 1, 1965, issue of Poetry magazine (p. 252).
“I come into myself. I leaf
gigantically. An empire yields
unexpectedly: cities, summer forests,
satrapies, horses.
A solitude: an enormity.
Thank god.”*
Every year, as spring burgeons, I think of these creative and oracular words, phrases that express my vernal euphoria so much more completely and elegantly than I ever could! I come into myself. I leaf gigantically.
In the winter months I cocoon, lying torpid, snuggling into the warmth and cosiness of my home. My small world becomes even smaller and tighter which is why I so eagerly anticipate spring’s arrival every year and why I can relate so strongly to the concept of leafing gigantically - spreading my wings, expanding my reach…
At the start of spring, I always have boundless goals for my photography, copious plans for outings to marshes and creeks, parks and conservation areas, and too many dreams of wildlife sightings to be counted. I happily arrange my life to create time for the kind of sweet moments and simple joys that allow me to leaf gigantically. Today was the beginning of my 2023 adventures and it couldn’t possibly have had a happier or more expansive start!
’Til next time, y’all…
*Jack Gilbert, from his poem “It Is Difficult To Speak Of The Night” which appeared in the January 1965 edition of Poetry magazine. Full poem printed below. Enjoy!
It Is Difficult To Speak Of The Night
It is the other time. Not
an absence of day.
But where there are no flowers
to turn away into.
There is only this dark
and the familiar place of my body.
And the voices calling out
of me for love.
This is not the night of the young:
their simple midnight of fear.
Nor the later place to employ.
This dark is a major nation.
I turn to it at forty
and find the night in flood.
Find the dark deployed in process.
Clotted in parts, in parts
flowing with lights.
The voices still keen of the divorce
we are born into.
But they are farther off,
and do not interest me.
I am forty, and it is different.
Suddenly in mid passage
I come into myself. I leaf
gigantically. An empire yields
unexpectedly: cities, summer forests,
satrapies, horses.
A solitude: an enormity.
Thank god.
Jack Gilbert
