National Poetry Month/Aprille

Of all the poetry I was required to memorize in school, this short bit from the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is only thing I still remember. I always think of it when April comes and I see the scilla blooming in the garden. I had never seen, or at least noticed, the small blue flowers until we moved into our house. The image was made by scanning in the lettering, placing it in a layer over a photo of scilla, and then making it a screen. You can hear the Middle English being read by Thomas Rau here and read a translation into contemporary English here.

And here is an old piece of calligraphy from a faded slide where I combined the words of Chaucer and Eliot on the month of April.