Ever Smiling

Her beauty, while intoxicating, never overpowers as does that of her summertime sisters. She has never been as reserved, nor as wise, as her brothers of autumn. Ever smiling, she drifts in the doorway as a fragrance, trailing lilacs all over the floor, and a bit of her lingers, in the secret corners of the soul, long after her departure.

She flirts, she entices, she weaves flowers in my hair and puts ideas in my head. She turns my chair towards the window and makes me think of picnics. She lays out my linen blazer and finds a gardenia for my lapel. She wants me to wear white shoes.

She recites poetry at the oddest times, stanzas awash with chimerical gardens and follies of stone. Pale rooms with tall windows and blue nights full of stars.
She erases years and fills my plate with strawberries. She dances a waltz in an arbor at midnight and begs me to follow her down to the sea.
I am helpless in her presence.

She is May.
Open the windows.
She is almost here.


"The month of May was come,
when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom,
and to bring forth fruit;
for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May,
in likewise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover,
springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds.
For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May."

Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur