Oh! To Be In April! Poem by Thomas Vaughan Jones

(in England, that is)


You can always tell it's April
By the sound of falling rain
That mystic, mournful music
As it trickles down the drain.

We're told we should be thankful
For the kiss of April showers
As it washes all the grass clean
And prepares the soil for flowers.

There's another side to April
Which doesn't bode us good,
When that mini, manic maelstrom
Turns the lawn to liquid mud.

When mice hide under hedges
And hedgehogs take to ground,
The birds are wet and hungry,
The worms have all been drowned.

Within a week, or maybe two,
A million latent seeds
Will germinate and procreate,
To fill the world with weeds.

Then while I'm fighting anarchy,
Armed with my trusty hoe.
Behind me, surreptitiously,
The grass begins to grow.

I ease my taut and breaking back
And nurse my aching bones.
I think I'll call the builders in
To lay some paving stones.

I'll build a concrete jungle
Where I can sit for hours,
Snug in a concrete garden shed
Secure from April Showers.