monday poem #71: Philip Larkin, "An April Sunday brings the snow"
I first became aware of Philip Larkin's work about ten years ago, when I got The Story's Angel in the House CD; the epigraph to the song "The Gilded Cage" is four lines from Larkin's poem "High Windows." Those four lines were all I knew of his poetry until I started reading the Collected Poems this weekend.
As such collections go, it's not very large, even given that it includes comparatively vast quantities of previously unpublished work (including this poem); and I am enjoying it. Nevertheless I am making slow progress, and may have to move on to something else for a while and return to this one later.
I was especially struck by this one for-well, for a lot of reasons, but one is that the last snow is finally melting around here. Or perhaps I should say the most recent snow; I've seen too many early April snows myself to feel certain we're all clear.
An April Sunday brings the snow
An April Sunday brings the snow
Making the blossom on the plum trees green,
not white. An hour or two, and it will go.
Strange that I spend that hour moving between
Cupboard and cupboard, shifting the store
Of jam you made of fruit from these same trees:
Five loads - a hundred pounds or more -
More than enough for all next summer's teas,
Which now you will not sit and eat.
Behind the glass, under the cellophane,
Remains your final summer - sweet
and meaningless, and not to come again.
- Philip Larkin
from Collected Poems
As such collections go, it's not very large, even given that it includes comparatively vast quantities of previously unpublished work (including this poem); and I am enjoying it. Nevertheless I am making slow progress, and may have to move on to something else for a while and return to this one later.
I was especially struck by this one for-well, for a lot of reasons, but one is that the last snow is finally melting around here. Or perhaps I should say the most recent snow; I've seen too many early April snows myself to feel certain we're all clear.
An April Sunday brings the snow
An April Sunday brings the snow
Making the blossom on the plum trees green,
not white. An hour or two, and it will go.
Strange that I spend that hour moving between
Cupboard and cupboard, shifting the store
Of jam you made of fruit from these same trees:
Five loads - a hundred pounds or more -
More than enough for all next summer's teas,
Which now you will not sit and eat.
Behind the glass, under the cellophane,
Remains your final summer - sweet
and meaningless, and not to come again.
- Philip Larkin
from Collected Poems