By Dawn's Early Light, new day, new month

"Dawn's Early Light," 6 x 9 cold press paper

A new month dawned, with 2020 now one third passed, in the year of the pandemic.
Excitement and hope seems to meet May, though seasoned with much caution, because the pandemic is nowhere eliminated. scientists and health care workers fear the worst could still come.
But at least we're through April, living up to T.S. Eliot's (1888-1965) famous lines:
"April is the cruelest month.
Let's hope so, even if May doesn't live up to 
British author Thomas Dekker 's (1572-1632) poem:
"O the month of May, the merry month of May,..."
Yesterday was the only day of the month I didn't complete a watercolor and post on this blog. Too much unsettled stress to try that antidote, though I did study some watercolor techniques via You Tube.
But--to try something different based on yesterday's studies--to greet the new day and month, today's watercolor attempts to bring more color and hope to offset the pandemic pandemonium.

The Angsts and Poets of April

"April," 5 x 7 watercolor, 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico cold press paper

How do you paint April?
Clouds or sunshine? Birth or death? Hope or despair? Beauty or beast?
There's the beauty of flowers and rain, and the terror of tornadoes. There was the birth of our Revolution, and the brutality of the OKC bombing. April is no fool
If you look for poets for advice, you find all those opposites, but more negative than positive.
This year, we're relieved to get through March, but face a longer April as the pandemic wreaks and wrecks havoc with every aspect of our lives all over the world.
Somebody suggested we keep journals of this disaster, for both our own mental health but also for future generations. I guess this blog and paintings approach that, though I'm more interested in bringing some color into these dark months, and recording facts. 
But such diaries are important, especially as we have no idea how long or really catastrophic this plague is going to be. 
Consider Samuel Pepys' 1665-1666 diary of the black death pandemic in London--it provides both the human and historical record that killed about 100,000 people in 18 months, a quarter of London's people. 
In our April, where there will be more deaths, more tragedies, back to the poets, who show us not much has changed over the years.
The first who came to my mind was T.S. Eliot, and particularly bleak, in The Waste Land:

   "April is the cruelest month, breeding

    Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

    Memory and desire, stirring

    Dull roots with spring rain."

Offset that with Shakespeare please:

   "April, dressed in all its trim, hath put a spirit of youth in everything."

But then there's Charles Lamb:"Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see the world hath more fools in it than ever—"

Go way back to 1367 to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, first in Middle English:

"Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour;" Translation:  "When in April the sweet showers fall that pierce March's drought to the root and all, And bathed very vein in liquor that has power To generate therein and sire the flower." Edna St. Vincent Millay was somewhat more cynical, in two poems: "April this year, not otherwise Than April of a year ago Is full of whispers, full of sighs,..." "Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.” Though not a poet, George Orwell wrote a line in 1984 that really seems to fit the insanity of our current crisis: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." The Angst of April indeed. I'll take clouds and colors thank you.

The bounty of April

A woodcut showing April's bounty from William Caxton's second edition of the Canterbury Tales in 1483. "WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour,..." The opening lines of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, surely written in a spring about 800 years ago in the late 1300s, could well describe Oklahoma as another month ends. The skies outside are humid, filled with shifting clouds dripping moisture. The drought of the previous year is over in all but the southeast of the state, and rains of the last two days and nights have only added to the greenery of spring with h most rainfall in four years. April has been the fourth month on the Roman calendar at least since 700 years before Christ, getting its name from the Latin aperie for "opening," referring to the opening of leaves and blossoms. Our ancestors the Anglo-Saxons called it "oster-monath" or "eostur-monath" after the pagan goddess Eostre whose feast was in that month. Ironically, that's where Christians got the name of Easter for their feast and celebration. April is ripe with more than crops, with many life-changing events. Just 620 years ago today, Columbus received his commission for his voyage of discovery. And on this day 209 years ago, what is now Oklahoma became part of the united States when Jefferson completed the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The month has been home to tragedy and triumph too. On April 19, 1775, a bunch of fed-up farmers started the Revolution by firing the "shot heard round the world," at the world's most powerful military at Concord and Lexington. From Emerson's 1837 "Concord Hymn":     "By the rude bridge that arched the flood,      Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,      Here once the embattled farmers stood,      And fired the shot heard round the world." Ninety years later, the American Civil War began and ended four bloody years apart in Aprils, 1861-1865. On April 21, 1836, Sam Houston and his Texican army defeated Santa Anna at San Jacinto, winning independence. We've just noted the 100th year of The Titanic sinking, April 15, 1912. On this day in 1945, Hitler and his one day bride committed suicide in Berlin. And in Oklahoma, we're all aware of April 19 for a different reason, the 1995 bombing. http://www.oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org/ Other April events underscore greatness. The Russians put the first man in space in April, 1961. The supersonic Concorde first flew in April 1969. Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth II's birthdays are in this month.  And finally, April oddities-- April starts on the same day of the week as July in all years, and January in leap years. April ends on the same day of the week as December every year. April has also been a month of romance, especially in music. "April Love," and "April in Paris."