Can Spring be far behind?

[jo]

Things are bleak these days...

but mother nature reminds us that the cycle of life is beginning again.

Welcome to the first day of Spring!

[jo]

Have you ever wondered where the famous quotation came from ?

"If winter comes, can spring be far behind"

Ode to the West Wind
By Percy Bysshe Shelley



I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

II
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aëry surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!

III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!

IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

[jo]

Usually, the Cote D'Azur shines best with two of the most glamorous events happening within 2 weeks of each other in May --

*the most fabled of the film festivals -- the Cannes Film Festival
*the marquee race of the Formula One season - the Monaco Grand Prix.



This year, both have been postponed/cancelled due to the virus threat -

but hopefully they will happen sometime during the year...

variety.com/2020/film/opinion/cannes-film-festival-better-late-than-never-column-1203539915/


but not for the Monaco Grand Prix which has been held at the principality since 1954... because of the scale of preparations needed to host it ( the whole principality is converted into a street racing circuit)

www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.monaco-announce-cancellation-2020-f1-race.4tpwalvxWpDL0uwRMnV9TI.html



What would spring be on the French Riviera without those 2 glittering attractions...and the slew of celebrities that grace them


Jo

[njr]

The dogwoods are blooming here in Atlanta and the temperature yesterday was high of 81! Today to be 77! Spring is my favorite season!

Nancy

[jo]

[jo]

It's been such a heartbreaking feeling everytime we watch the news -- no matter where you switch channels to, even those in a different language -- they always come back to the terrible tragedy that has come to the world.

I remember faintly a quote from the Greek dramatist and poet Aeschylus --

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

It is hard to understand why these things are happening to us. True the statistical curve is rising at even more fearsome rates...but to a great extent, this could be attributable to more aggressive testing. Hopefully, we can start to feel the flattening of that rate of increase, as seen in countries who had dealt with the crisis ahead of most of the world.


But it is also a source of comfort how humanity is coming together, bound by a common tragedy...while literally not holding hands but bound not just by the common tragedy but by man seeking ways to help another!


And maybe we hope that down the line... our spring is coming...one day ...after another...after another!

The flowers of spring bring joy...and maybe hope!





Jo