Whan that Aprill

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

-Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, Prologue

Same Thing, Every Spring

Dan, go get your jacket
It's still a little cold outside
And don't play in mud, you'll track it
And I just cleaned inside
Momma don't need a coat, he yells
As he heads down to the game
Where the field is dressed seductively
In puddles of old rain
Same thing, every Spring

All kinds of life is sproutin
Flyin round, some getting scarfed
Like mommas having babies
And their heads are popping off
Well Nate taught that to Sally
Who then taught it to Nadine
Who couldn't quite get the hang
Of poppin em off real nice and clean
Same thing, every Spring

It's time to open up the shed
Wake the hibernating bears
Old grizzly and old kodiak
Are a couple of our John Deers
It's time to plant the seeds
But the garden dirt's too hard
We'll have to borrow Andy's tiller
Ours got rusted in the yard
Same thing, every Spring

Well April has it's showers
So May has buttercups
And the birds sing every morning
That the earth is warming up
So we gather all the sweaters
All the mittens and the coats
Don't open til October
On the box somebody wrote
Same thing, every Spring

No matter how we try
To live our lives beyond the same
We'll always have the dandelions
And the puddles of old rain
Well me I kind of like the thought
There's really nothing wrong
So winter won't you join with me
A few bars of this old song
Same thing every Spring

-Ticklepenny Corner