Tire Swings and A Coastal 'May Day'

 

The first day of the month of May is known as May Day. Warmer weather begins and flowers and trees start to blossom.  As I walked along Shores Blvd, the tree swings and boats were idling quietly in the breeze.  I could find the energy coming from the warm weather.  The cold fronts of the North is lingering with snow falls in Colorado and in the mid-west, but in St. Augustine, winter is over and sunny days are here with mother nature's vibrant colors abound swirling around my head.

Sir Thomas Malory (died 14 March 1471)
Le Morte d'Arthur


"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."
(Le Morte d'Arthur Book XVIII, ch. 25)
In 1469-70, a man named Thomas Malory (1405-1471) sat down to write a book about the adventures of King Arthur and his knights – a book that indirectly gave rise to works ranging from the novels of Sir Walter Scott and the poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson to the Prince Valiant comics and Camelot musicals of the twentieth century. More information:

"How the Red Bud Came" and other Trees Georgia Hwy 82

Ga. Hwy 82 from Tifton to Columbus is the route I travel to my home town.  It is mostly farm fields and pecan orchards.  In March, the Bradford Pear trees and Red buds were blooming along side of Hwy 82.  New leafs were just starting to grow on the Pecan trees.  The visions of spring was worth a stop along side the road. The colors of the Red Bud capture my eye and I had to embrace it's beauty.

 

How the Red Bud Came by Kate Stephens
1853-1938

 

Once upon a time, the old books said,
A winsome girl in a Riding Hood Red,
Fell prey to Mr. Wolf when he searched for his bread.
 
But the books are wrong (as books may be),
For a strange thing happened, as we shall see.
 
Red Riding Hood did on a fair spring day
Visit her Grandmother - then, singing a lay,
With basket and flagon take homegoing way.
 
'Twas in woods Mr. Grey Wolf came on her path .
And his lips were curled in a wolfish laugh.
 
As the fierce old rogue walked hastily towards
The red-cloaked girl speaking promise-fair words,
(For those were the days when the animals talked
In a speech like to humans'), when towards her he stalked,
Stood Little Red Riding Hood fast to the spot
Rooted, eager to fly but daring not.
 
(Now what we here tell of those days of old,
Her Grandmother Tanager in carols has told;
Also Smoothcoat Chipmunk has chatted from the mold.)
 
And as Mr. Grey Wolf neared and snarled
in those far-away woods 'neath an oak tree gnarled
And grown with ivy, yet standing there
And raising its head in the glad sweet air,
Then came that strangest of things to see -
(Far out of the ken of you or of me)
For Riding Hood changed all at once to the tree
That now we call Red Bud.

And, too, suddenly
Her cloak turned to blossoms, which once in a year
She puts forth to tell Mr. Wolf drew anear.
A moment of doubt and a moment of fear.
 
Her basket and flagon (this likewise is odd)
Became the seed covers, brown silvery pods,
Which fall to the ground when the winds blow loud.
 
And this is the reason, the wood-folks agree,
That we now have each spring the cloaked Red Bud tree,
Who never grows tall, as other trees grow,
She loves her old child-like stature so.

 

by Kate Stephens

1853-1938

(Winds of Delphic Kansas, Woodstock, N.Y.: The Maverick Press. 1911)