To Spring

Sonnet: to Spring
Sylvia Plath

you deceive us with the crinkled green
of juvenile stars, and you beguile us with
a bland vanilla moon of maple cream:
again you tame us with your april myth.

last year you tricked us by the childish jingle
of your tinsel rains; again you try,
and find us credulous once more. A single
diabolic shower, and we cry

to see the honey flavored morning tilt
clear light across the watergilded lawn.
although another of our years is spilt
on avaricious earth, you lure us on:

Again we are deluded and infer
That somehow we are younger than we were.


Sylvia Plath wrote this poem in her journal in August 1951. She was eighteen at the time and finishing up a summer post as a governess of sorts. It was never published, but I still like it. Spring and I have a complicated relationship. I like spring in theory. I am the first to admit that the change in weather has a profound effect on my mood. I always find it amazing how as soon as the sun comes out and the snow starts melting everyone just comes alive. I've really been struck by that wandering through the school the past week or so. It's the most stressful time of the semester, but the emergence of the sun has brought people to life. However, living in Edmonton means that spring can also be downright cruel. There is no guarantee that we won't see snow again before summer. And the mess created by the melting snow and the sand and gravel that has been put on the roads all winter long is just plain disgusting. Plus seasonal changes mean exciting things like my knees swell (I know, I sound like an old woman). So Spring and I have a complicated relationship. I feel like Plath's poem gets at that sense of knowing I am being deluded and yet falling for it every year.