Bloody May

It rained again last night. The moisture cooled everything off. This is not the rain of the Eurythmics, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. For it is May and May is a moment of life anew, springing forth like a source of new found water from the ground. If April is the cruelest month for Eliot and Chaucer, then what is May?

The dreary rain of April has washed away the gray crust of Winter and the flowers of May are bringing home their pilgrims like the old riddle. How ironic, listen:

"April showers bring May flowers;
What do May flowers bring?
Pilgrims."

And what comprised the April story, "Canterbury Tales"? A story of pilgrims on their way to find healing at the holy site of Canterbury. Telling stories along the way.

I heard an interview with Salman Rushdie on Tuesday. He was speaking about the beginning of his desire to write. He remembered watching "The Wizard of Oz" as a child and being enchanted by the journey from gray, dour Kansas, with its sour old women and its cyclones to bright, colorful Oz. The journey from the everyday to the miraculous has become the basis for his writing. He sees everything as a journey of discovery.

So, like the childhood riddle, April is a time of pilgrimage. Of journeys. When the juices of an earlier year, lying dormant through a frozen Winter, come up from the dead, browned ground, bringing flowers and blossoms and warmth and love and life. Are we so tied to the world in which we live? Do we move ineffably to its movement? Without even thinking?

And May is horses cantering through the green fields. Lambs kicking in the hills. Jazz in the park. A chance to get out and smile at the miracle of recreation.

"But here comes the rain again. Falling on my head like a memory. Falling on my head like a new emotion."

There are dark circles under your eyes. What do you see?

Eight belles is dead. What else lies here?