A.k.a. Thomas H. Johnson edition (1955): Poem #812; R. W. Franklin edition (1998): Poem #891
John’s related banter…
Good morning, Hank.
It’s Tuesday, March 26th, 2013, also known as spring. You know, spring…(quotes William Shakespeare, from Love’s Labour’s Lost)
Spring, (quotes William Blake, To Spring)
Spring, which is like a woman who says, (quotes Carl Sandburg, Three Spring Notations on Bipeds)
Spring, when (quotes A. E. Housman, Spring Morning)
(Quotes Emily Dickinson, A Light exists in Spring) Where is this light, Emily Dickinson? Is it down there with the snow? Is it up there in the grey sky of doom? Because that looks exactly like the winter light!
Hank, when the Yeti [John’s in-video nickname for his wife, Sarah Urist Green] and I first moved to Indianapolis, we dropped off the moving van at the U-Haul place, and the guy was like, “Welcome to Indianapolis!”
And I said, “How long have you lived here?” And he said, “Oh, about 30 years.” And I said, “Well, what do you think of it?” And after a second, he said, “Well, you gotta live somewhere.” I think that’s probably how a lot of people feel about their hometowns, but I’ve really come to love Indianapolis, even in… the spring snow.
It’s an unpretentious city of hidden beauty, which is by far my favorite kind of beauty, and it’s lovely, even in winter. But I am ready, Hank, I am ready for spring. Hank, the calendar has made me a promise that outside has failed to keep, stupid outside, always ruining everything.
So Hank, I don’t actually believe that magical thinking works or anything, but I thought for today’s video I would share my favorite poem about spring in the hopes that like spring will like happen.
I also love this poem because it reminds us that poetry is partly in the business of getting us to try to pay attention. It’s by e. e. cummings.
You gotta live somewhere, Hank, but you also get to live to somewhere. So brace yourself, my friends, spring is coming.
Hank, I’ll you on Friday.
vlogbrothers | A Poem for Spring
A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
(Unquoted remainder)
When March is scarcely here
A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.
It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.
Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay —
A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.
John Green Reads Poetry 