May Day

I copied this from the poetry blog:

May Day It's Lady Day again! Come Spring! Come all ye patience handsel blooms! Bring forcing gardens' flow'ring quince! Bring hot house bulb and lilies, too! Bring Holy Mary's crown again, a flow'ring diadem - come Spring! The cold and rains of April past; come unnamed flowers all! together with your namèd kin: the rose, the daffodil, and pink, and sweet those fragrant dandies in the lawns so newly green; this crown of May will last! May God Almighty bless us all! Conserve us safe from harm! And all the Saints step forth! Attest! conjoined in joyful choirs and lit- anies assembling, breaking forth in song! Pray save us from our Fall! Mom Mary strides forth like Orpheus and takes hell's subway ride to stand beside her faithful folk in Time's still darkling fields of War, to nurse the bleeding, wounded souls to health; restore the World to peace renown! notes: handsel a gift or reward; here a reward for enduring winter; a Scots word, I believe.

Sometimes I use it as mitzvah, a blessing or divine reward.

Orpheus

Orpheus descended even into Hades to rescue his beloved Eurydice.

So does Mary hazard all for her children.

The meter is odd and seems to change, the 5th lines lengthening in the last two stanzes. I'm not sure why I did this. It's pretty much still hot from the oven, though. Today I was helping my father with his gardening, a chore which he makes exhausting because the plan is in his head, but it comes out piece by piece, and there is a lot of walking about and talking about the ravages of winter, the harm the snow plows have done, the water level of the river, and so on. So I have to pray for patience and humility, being by nature impatient and demanding. While walking under the cherry tree, it dawned on me today was May Day. I stopped walking and he looked at me. He asked me what I was doing. I said I was praying to Our Lady, because it was May Day, and I had forgotten. I forget what the prayer was. I just stopped and prayed something or somehow - I don't really analyze it - then started back walking. He is a church goer, but I don't think he's used to people suddenly stopping and praying. When we had finished, I started to think about the poem for this week, and this came flying by - a handsel or reward for being a nice guy.