Mary Ursula Bethall, 'Response'
When you wrote your letter it was April,
And you were glad that it was spring weather,
And that the sun shone out in turn with showers of rain.
I write in waning May and it is autumn,
And I am glad that my chrysanthemums
Are tied up fast to strong posts,
So that the south winds cannot beat them down.
I am glad that they are tawny coloured,
And fiery in the low west evening light.
And I am glad that one bush warbler
Still sings in the honey-scented wattle…
But oh, we have remembering hearts,
And we say ‘How green it was in such and such an April,’
And ‘Such and such an autumn was very golden,’
And ‘Everything is for a very short time.’
The fourth in my month of poetry. I’m not sure why this little poem stays with me, but it seems to be stuck in my head for some reason. Mary Ursula Bethall (1874- 1945) was born in England but lived most of her life in New Zealand. I presume the person who sends the letter in this poem is writing from England where April means spring, while the speaker in New Zealand receives it a month later in her autumn. Unless, the letter was written in an April many years previously and ‘autumn’ is a metaphor for aging.