[Image: “Outliers (Hiding in the Crowd),” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)]

The Missus and I have been more or less parked here in Las Vegas since mid-December. It’s been nice — at least from our perspective, haha — to share some extended time with The Stepson, and our stereotypically-Vegas activities (casinos, shows, fine dining) have been practically nonexistent… so it’s been good to just, y’know, depressurize after the fits-and-starts dash across the country that took up our last four or five months of 2021. Now it’s April, solidly into springtime, and a certain restlessness is setting in: time to hit the road again, aimed — however indirectly — back at the East Coast.

But first, well, it’s April. We have a clutch of medical/dental appointments lined up next week — just regular checkups — back in the last place we called home, in North Florida. So we’ll fly back for that, and while we’re in the state we’ll also spend a couple weeks with family and friends before heading back here.

But, ahem, as I was saying: It’s April. And whiskey river has taken the opportunity to remind me of the month’s mixed signals:

April

How the light is sad.
How it will not leave us alone.
How we are tugged up staircases
by the way it angles across landings.
Or just our faces—tipped
to the clear, depleted sky.
How because of sunset, the imagination
headquarters in the west.

Spring in the north: all that
tawny grass and gravel and nothing
green to sop up the excessive honesty.

Outside our windows,
something like youth or promises.
How the wind blows right through them,
blossoming. Fleet.

(Jan Zwicky [source])

Whenever and wherever we finally settle down, sometime in a few months (“few” even more loosely defined than usual), the two of us agree that a chief motivator for us will be the priority to the household of a dog. It’s been four-and-a-half years since The Pooch died, and we just can’t stand being dogless anymore.

Happily, then, and happily along several dimensions, as I sought to come up with something to complement — and perhaps answer — Jan Zwicky’s poem, I came across this:

April

The optimists among us
taking heart because it is spring
skip along
attending their meetings
signing their e-mail petitions
marching with their satiric signs
singing their we shall overcome songs
posting their pungent twitters and blogs
believing in a better world
for no good reason
I envy them
said the old woman

The seasons go round they
go round and around
said the tulip
dancing among her friends
in their brown bed in the sun
in the April breeze
under a maple canopy
that was also dancing
only with greater motions
casting greater shadows
and the grass
hardly stirring

What a concerto
of good stinks said the dog
trotting along Riverside Drive
in the early spring afternoon
sniffing this way and that
how gratifying the cellos of the river
the tubas of the traffic
the trombones
of the leafing elms with the legato
of my rivals’ piss at their feet
and the leftover meat and grease
singing along in all the wastebaskets

(Alicia Ostriker [source])

…and then again, this:

April Is a Dog’s Dream

april is a dog’s dream
the soft grass is growing
the sweet breeze is blowing
the air all full of singing feels just right
so no excuses now
we’re going to the park
to chase and charge and chew
and I will make you see
what spring is all about

(Marilyn Singer [source])

Woof!, eh?

______________

Note: This week’s whiskey river Fridays post comes to you courtesy of, well, Thursday: Friday is our day to fly back to Florida (translation: chaos). As for the next couple of weeks, well, let’s just take them as they come. (For one thing, Running After My Hat turns 14 the middle of next week…) Thanks in any case, and as ever, for visiting RAMH!

Note 2: By the way, this post’s title alludes — as I believe Alicia Ostriker’s “April” may allude — to Joni Mitchell’s “The Circle Game.”