KATHERINE NEVILLE’S
April Pilgrimage Newsletter
April 4, 2017
April Arrives
According to one of my favorite poets, TS Eliot, April is a scary month that brings unwanted feelings:
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain
Time for a Pilgrimage! (Road Trip!)
However, 500 years earlier, according to that master craftsman Geoffrey Chaucer (Chausseur, in French, means Shoemaker) – April was the time folks want to get stirring: Get out of that cozy bed, out of that comfy house and hit the road! Amen, all sleepyheads!
(Chaucer’s Middle English text, with my brief translation, follows.)
WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages…
My summary: “When April with its sweet showers…drenches every dried-out root and vine of March… when soft breezes bring the earth and crops back to life and little birds begin to sing… Then folks long to set off on Pilgrimages!”
One of my favorite pilgrimages is The Way of Santiago; I’ve traveled its routes, collecting memories and treasures as I went, and written about it in The Quest.
The Quest: The Way of Santiago
Please visit me on my website www.KatherineNeville.com
Facebook @AuthorKatherineNeville & Twitter @KNeville_Quest
