Breaking news! April ushers in spring.

Flowers, blue skies, and poetry abound.

Sunrise © Kathryn LeRoy

Hello friends,

Today’s post highlights what I love most about April in words and photographs. New Year’s may signal the start of another year, but I find this month a more fitting place to celebrate beginnings—all that’s new and full of life.

I remember, as a child, the restlessness and excitement that this time of year always generated. The dreary winter had passed and summer hung on the horizon.

According to Mark Twain, “It's a spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want to — oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”

I wholeheartedly agree.

Where flowers bloom, so does hope. —Lady Bird Johnson

Spring won’t let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again. —Gustav Mahler

Always it's spring and everyone's in love and flowers pick themselves.
—e.e. Cummings

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.
—Margaret Atwood

When I taught those gangly, hormone-driven teenagers, my poetry unit always came in April. Every year, those young minds never thought of themselves as poets.

But every year, a few of them surprised even themselves. I do believe there is a bit of a poet in all of us. Try it. You, too, might be surprised with yourself.

A poet is someone—you, me, anyone—who writes poems.
—Judson Jerome

April is National Poetry Writing Month, and I’ve challenged myself to write 30 poems in 30 days. Find links to all of my poetry here.

These young people share Why We Read Poetry,

April brings more than flowers, there’s also  Simon and Garfunkel with April Come She Will, the great Ella and Louie crooning about April in Paris, April Showers by Sugarland, and Pat Boone’s April Love. What is your favorite April melody?

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.
—Rachel Carson

I hope you find a little wonder this week and perhaps, a poem.

With gratitude,

Kathryn

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