Babbling And Strewing Flowers

Grateful Dead: Weather Report Suite **

** 6/28/74

To what purpose, April,
do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
you can no longer
quiet me with the redness
of little leaves
opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck
as I observe
the spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent
that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground
are the brains of men
eaten by maggots.

Life in itself
is nothing,
an empty cup,
a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly,
down this hill,
April comes like an idiot,
babbling and strewing flowers.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay
Second April