![\"grandmother_sm.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/archives\/image\/grandmother_sm.jpg\")
\nView larger image<\/a><\/p>\n
January, February, March, April<\/p>\n
Christmas was one of the times to be born:
\nChristmas or January, the Christmas mothers
\nhaving quickened to the call of spring
\nmore urgently, put out their shoots
\nlike indoors plants in the pull of the early sun,
\nbefore the warmth of air and sky
\nand earth and water could tempt the rest.<\/p>\n
Yet she was not a Christmas baby,
\nbut an April, conceived in summer
\nwhen all the world was hot and vibrant,
\nnot gone to seed. She was moreover
\nan inflation baby, thought of
\nbefore depression, born after.
\nNo, they had not wanted her,
\nthey said so, later, frankly.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But you were such a cheerful baby,
\nyou smiled, and we were glad you came.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
And yet she knew, she had her birthday mates,
\nborn the self-same day: parents divorced,
\nbaby squalling in the background.
\nThe grandmother brought them up, the aunt.
\nNot hers, no, with her mother too Puritan
\nto quit the father, penniless, despondent.
\nHers stuck, said nothing but,
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want you, no, but you
\nwere such a happy baby, you smiled,
\nwe had to laugh.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Yes, it was one of the times of year
\nto be born, April, conceived in summer,
\ncarried triumphant through the blazing fall,
\nholding heavy through the long
\nNew England winter, holding, heavy, despondent.
\n(And will we all get through it this year?
\nshe couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but wonder. No,
\nfor Grampa died on Friday.) And then,
\nin April, the hepaticas curling silvery
\nand the skunk cabbages curving purple,
\nthen to come: sturdy, smooth,
\nsmall, dark and determined. Then
\nto come, yes, to be born.<\/p>\n
Yes, it was one of the times of year to be born,
\nApril, the world waiting expectant,
\nready to laugh and smile through the wet,
\nand she grew like an April child, shy,
\nexpectant, into summer. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nshe said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153will the world do, now
\nI am come? Will it perhaps change?
\nThey will war no more when they see me.
\nPeople will work and war no more.
\nThere will be no orange peels thrown in the street.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
So she went forth to seek her fortune,
\nand was strong, willing, worked hard and was tired.
\nShe stooped to pick up orange peels
\na thousand times a day, candy wrappers, pop bottles.
\nBut they threw them, and at her, and she said,
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Good heavens, whatever is the matter?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nand they said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shit. Aw, shit.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You know,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said her friend one May morning, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153it seems
\nreally quite senseless to me, yes,
\nit is very lovely to sit here under
\nthe apple blossoms eating liverwurst
\nsandwiches on pumpernickel bread,
\nand carefully saving the waxed paper to stow
\nin the receptacle at the end of the park,
\nbut it really does seem quite senseless to me:
\nwhen you look underneath, there is absolutely nothing
\nholding it all up. It is like Euclid,
\nlovely and simple and complicated, but
\nthere is nothing behind those geometry
\ntheorems at all.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, that is true,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d answered the girl helplessly,
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153but the apple blossoms are lovely,
\nare they not?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Yet her heart sank
\nwithin her, for her friend, too,
\nwas an April baby, born that self-same
\nday of affirmation just past,
\nbut her friend asked so very much.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d her friend said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153am not sure
\nthat I shall bother to look again,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nand the girl knew the bottomless panic
\nfor the first time. When her friend
\ndied, and by her own hand, the girl
\nwas furious. God was stupid, exceedingly stupid;
\nthere had been a terrible mistake.<\/p>\n
So she wrote to a boy she knew, also April.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Come,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said, for she knew no other
\nword, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is the world not beautiful,
\nwill they not war no more when they see us?
\nCome, we are grown, it is May already,
\ntime that we and our lives bore fruit.
\nCome, we will work and be tired, come.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
And so there was marriage, January children,
\nall but the first. Tired. They were tired.
\nChristmas came, January and winter
\nset in. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Here,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153it is only
\nFebruary, I am exhausted, they
\nare driving me wild, here it is only
\ntwenty to three, supper at five,
\nbed at seven, and already they
\nhave crayoned the walls, clayed the floor,
\nspilled milk twice and left six leaky
\norange juice cans in a pool on the couch.
\nOnly nineteen minutes of three
\nand the fifth of February.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Come,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said to them, snowsuits, mittens,
\nboots, hats, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153out, under the sky,
\nalong the Charles, under the sycamores,
\nthere will be a sign.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And the sign came:
\nblack birds came alight on
\nthe forsythia branches, shaking the snow.<\/p>\n
She gathered the large sprays and hurried them home.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153These will be forced,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said,
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153before you know it, it will be March,
\nthe room will be ablaze with yellow,
\nit will be lovely. We will see
\nthe philodendron sprout and
\nthe kalanchoe bloom. The long
\nwinter weeks of brooding will be over.
\nSpring will come for us, yes,
\nrebirth, yes, the affirmation.
\nWhy could she not have waited? \u00c3\u00abMy friend,
\nwe are all, else, here. We all are,
\nthough Grampa did die on Friday.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
It was, it was a good time to be born, April.
\nMore babies were born into the world,
\nsons of April sons, daughters
\nof April daughters, those that were left
\nafter war, suicide, divorce and darkness.
\nMore babies wriggled in wrenching agony
\ntoward the world, strong and moist
\nas hyacinth buds freshly surfacing,
\ntensed for the last huge pushing pop.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes, pop, they do pop, corks from bottles,
\nexcept slightly more dignified. Yes,
\nsweetheart, you did, too. I was
\ntired, but I was glad you came.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
More babies were born into the world,
\nJanuary, February, March and April,
\nsome on her birthday: a boy, Christopher,
\na girl, Sarah (the names that year).
\nSix pounds, twelve ounces, eight
\npounds, four. Did the parents know
\nthat Christopher was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Christ-bringer,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nSarah, the middle name
\nfor Hitler\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Jews? What
\ndid they know, except for club feet,
\nwhich didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happen any more,
\nthough flippers did. What could
\nthey know, except for constipation?
\nOver and over she bore them
\nor bore them with her, through
\nJanuary, February, March
\nand April. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d make it
\nto April, many an April. Such
\na fine time of year to be born.<\/p>\n
Except then it struck her:
\nMay was the problem. <\/p>\n
Nancy Tomlinson Hall Rice 1930 – 1988
\n(This poem was written sometime between 1962 and 1973.)
\n![\"skunkcabbage.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/archives\/image\/skunkcabbage.jpg\")
\n“Sturdy, smooth, dark and determined.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Poem written by Jennifer’s mother. Photograph of Jennifer’s grandmother. View larger image January, February, March, April Christmas was one of the times to be born: Christmas or January, the Christmas mothers having quickened to the call of spring more urgently, … Continue reading