Happy May Day

image via ToxicInk

Though May Day is not a huge American holiday - I do like the idea of celebrating the beginning of spring with the image of children twisting and turning and learning to dance in a tumble of brightly colored ribbon.

"Under the Maypole"

by Andrew Hudgins

Ribbons, pearl and purple,

dangle from the maypole

down to the pale

hands of children, who pull

them, giggling. They purl

in breezes, and almost rumple.

Under the old eyes of a principal

whose narrow glance is ample

to subdue but not appall,

the children spill

around the skinned and limbless maple

as if outside the temple

of a declining god of simple

rituals easily met. Bells peal.

Old tunes impose their spell

on the awkward small feet they impel

around the resurrection pole.

The pattern’s simple,

plaiting boy to pearl

and girl to purple,

and when their fingers touch the pole

and the ribbons, at last, rumple,

no lips purse, no faces crumple

except one teacher’s, and I can’t spoil

the day’s innocent and uninnocent appeal,

which terminates April’s cold intermittent pall.

poem found in "The Atlantic" magazine