Mixing Memory And Desire

I have little time to post today, but with this month nearly over, I of course found myself thinking about The Waste Land:

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Spring seems to be the time I make fateful choices - four years ago, for instance, having decided to move back to New York, I was on a fabulous farewell tour of California. In other Aprils I have lost and found loves, jobs, a child and perfect spring shoes.

It stands out as perhaps not the cruelest month for me, but one of the most eventful. But Eliot ended his poem with "Shantih shantih shantih," the peace that passes understanding, and perhaps some April I will achieve that. (I was amused to see just now Time's dismissive 1923 appraisal of this rich work.)