Golden Spring

The sun has been reluctant to boldly show a face this spring, as if guided by a Shakespearean sonnet in letting "the basest clouds to ride / With ugly rack on his celestial face." Not that the clouds are really ugly, but they do make the spring feel more Brit than Midwest with moist air and shaded landscapes.
When the sun does appear through leaves still unfurling, another poet comes to mind, another master of verse and transience:

                          Nothing Gold Can Stay

                        Nature's first green is gold,
                        Her hardest hue to hold.
                        Her early leaf's a flower;
                        But only so an hour.
                        Then leaf subsides to leaf.
                        So Eden sank to grief,
                        So dawn goes down to day.
                        Nothing gold can stay.
                                         Robert Frost

As the North's brief spring yields rosy blossoms and the territorial claims of birds, The Random Animal is reading Lord of Misrule and researching dogs in the military. More on those topics to come. . .