"When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything." (Sonnet 98)

Last night, about 10:30 Rhoda's Canasta game broke up here and after the ladies left, Rho's new cell phone rang in the den and it happened to be Jon, her son, calling from Norfolk. And then the shocker came: Rho asked him how he's doing and what's new? The answer was that he was doing just fine and that he just got married! Jon had been married before, a number of years ago, and since then he met Joanne, a very lovely girl that we met at a wedding or something back in New York a year or two ago. Since we had no previous notion of Jon's intentions, his news was kind of startling to both of us, but we are quite happy for them and we hope that this time Jon's marriage will last. In one family historical instant, I became a father-in-law. I can handle it, but I'm not going to buy them a bed.

I don't know why, but strangely the news of Jon's wedding/marriage somehow reminded me of a passage in Yeat's poem, "The Stolen Child."

Perhaps because it describes an evening of jollity, dancing, and of course, drinking. Not only that, but the passage has my name in it...but it's not Jon's name; his name is Tessler. With apologies to Mr. Yeats.

"Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim grey sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all the night,

Weaving olden dances,

Mingling hands and mingling glances

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And is anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping

than you can understand."

Yes, I know. "The Rosses" does not really refer to my Rosses, but to the headlands, a geographical and social region in the west of County Donegal, part of the Province of Ulster in Ireland; a really awesome place. Perhaps the "human child" refers to Jon...or to any "child" who marries these days. Well, now there is only one more day in April, and then I will have four months of blogs that document my life in the year 2008. I am going to publish the blogs of these past four months for those who either have no computer, or for those who need to catch up on some they haven't read.