SPRING DAY

Today is Spring Day!
Open your arms and welcome its awakening.
Sing out loud; dance a jig; float to the moon and touch the stars,
The long Winter has gone.
The bitter days have sunk into the majestic, rolling hills.

A cold breeze drifts around stirring the tender leaves.
I lift my head and sigh.
My thoughts reach out to embrace
the evidence of new life; the wondrous signs;
the dawning anew
of another beautiful Spring.

A patch of pristine snowdrops nestles beneath a willow tree.
They shiver, their heads bowed in homage,
not knowing the joy they bring.
Crocuses spear from the ground searching for light.
Will they be yellow; orange; purple,
or a perfect, lavender striped, white?

A sparrow pokes around, searching the still hard ground.
He fluffs up his plumage and chirps merrily, calling his mate.
She answers. They dive into the hawthorn hedge
to build their nest, to be filled with tiny, blue speckled eggs.
My ears will welcome the persistent chirps,
of their fragile babies.

I turn my thoughts to open spaces that drift with daffodils and tulips.
The hedgerows burst with life and the hills are green.
But then – I stop, and search my heart.
I thank our Lord for giving me this Spring Day to enjoy.
Then turn away and weep for the tragic people in our world who
cannot know this beauty, only suffering.

Spring-like sun, my god!
Surely that’s not you
a-peeping through my curtain crack –
seductive Tom with
craven glance
and jaunty step?
I wish!

Winter drags its tendrils out
from riven skies
through hedge and ditch
and sends you, wimpish would-be-god,
hard pressed and pale,
and tired, so tired…
Get lost!

No fever yet in your step,
you turn your blind eye
Nelson-like
and poke at me
a weakling ray
to tempt me from my bed.
Ha!

Awakened from sleep,
to a faux-spring day
with no bright god to greet me,
but only an imposter,
I heed you.
Not.

Four small birds squashed
together in a grass-lined box.
Soft sleeping sparrow shapes
dreaming green caterpillar dreams……
Then, a Big Bang explosion of
energy. Sun yellow ‘feed-me-first’
mouths open wide as moon craters.
Stars in the making.

They’re on camera,
but they don’t know it,
beamed into my living room

on Bird Box TV, the best channel.
In high pitched definition
they cheap, jostle for attention
and the Big Brother Bird House
camera gets it all.
Squabbling
scratching
shuffling
pushing
pecking
preening.

Brand new wings are fluttered

and spread like fans over
the other housemates.
It’s time for the first eviction.

After winter’s flagellation: trees stand as if unbowed,
akin to bastions of priests and priestesses
awaiting their blessed exoneration
from spring’s lactating sap.

Twisted, majestic, warped, evergreen,
deciduous, lopped or deformed: are trees
a surviving force of panspermia that live and breathe
through time, space and adversity?

Or, are they functioning as landscaped mediators,
whose presence uplifts humanity
from their subconscious thoughts of the unimaginable?

The trees’ life-lined circles are recorded, hidden behind
hardened-skinned barks; a core testament of their rebirth
when rooted in Earth’s crust.

But what of the trees’ overreaching:
does their spatial growth sense a gravitational pull
to evolve beyond the all ready known?

If thoughts on the theory of everything, large or small,
are elusive, unseen, hidden behind
curved, orbitual walls: can this infinite scale be imagined
or will it remain a distorted illusion?

With spring’s resuscitation from winter’s grip:
do seasons’ echoes rotate and transmit the past
in the present of time’s future?

And when the blackbird sits in the trees and sings
of a new beginning; a new spring day’s dawn:

will humankind foresee instead, history repeating itself
through the pain of war and tsunami cries?

Dragging the Christmas tree out the door,
a longing begins that grips at my core.
The first two months almost wished away,
my mood, like the sky, tinged with grey.
When there’s no more festive songs to sing,
I’m longing just longing for it to be Spring.

I search for signs that it’s getting near,
green shoots breaking through, buds to appear.
As life inches up despite the frost,
I too, start to feel that little less lost.
A buzz inside knowing it’s about to begin,
Winter farewell, make way for Spring.

Days getting longer, so good for the soul,
the rush in the dark now a pleasant stroll.
Instead of appearing like Michelin men,
layers come off, we’re lighter again.
Children enjoying a slide and a swing,
faces smiling that it’s finally Spring.

After missing the sight of colour around,
crocuses in purple and yellow abound.
The sun on my face, the desire to plan,
gathering momentum now that I can.
I find myself gazing on the world afresh,
warmth in my bones, there’s Spring in my step.

Daffodils

You are stars shining for spring
whilst others squat in shady mulch
a transient festival of yellow
trumpeting in the new beginning

Alone you are nothing, and all day
whisper a lonely lament
but here on the crowded verge
your voices mingle with birdsong
making buds burst on trees

Small rays of sunshine, I feast on you
until my cold bones crack
and blood seeps back to my fingers
you rewire my dull senses
daffodils – you give me hope

Determination in your body
as you go
pushing your way
out
of clammy earth,
shaking off remnants
of mildewy soil still clinging
to your forehead,
you stretch
towards light,
experiencing the pure pleasure
of a day
alive,
life beckons you, come, join in
be with us,
hurry
the rain will fall later,
and possibly wash away the soil
from under tender
roots,
your eyes are
still new, you’re
getting accustomed to the light
but for now,
sprout.

Vibrant
Surging
Calling
Urging.

Autumn, winter, over sure
Though there may be yet some more
And summer still seems far away
But held down long enough, I say
“Spring is sprung.”

Announced by hosts of tiny shoots
Peeping nervously from the earth
Beyond value, deep down roots
Who can judge what they are worth?

And now the blossom on the trees
Pastel blue, pink and white
Waving gently to us in the breeze
As though to signal all is right.

As spring bids goodbye to winter wind and snow
Bringing the promise of summer warmth and sun
Revealing secrets tothose who know.
Would that it was forever to run and run.

Vibrant, surging, calling, urging.
Spring is sprung.

Youthful Springtime held months of daring sunrises

Blackbirds, Grackles, Wrens, and Martins

Aligned, shoulder-to-shoulder like contemplative nuns

On wire and eave, appreciatively regarding a freshly-turned world

Of field, garden, and plot

Warming to life with grub and worm

Freed from a languid siege, the sky threw wide its windows

To a rush of air, raw and fresh, holding the breaths of alien zephyrs

Transporters of histories from far flung shores

While native nostrils flared to inspire the true fragility

Of the flit of fairy wings, the drone of dragonfly engines

And a thousand like species of airborne emigrants

Fashionable rainbows, the more threadbare the better

Were sported on the runways of gritty street or sunbaked sand

Eyes glistened behind the coy flutter of lashes to meet a bold glance

Hearts swelled, broaching the bonds of intimate conversation

For if luck so chose, a tryst’s paramour or lifetime’s companion

Might be persuaded to take the air, the sun, and the exquisite freedom

But with the fleetness of a season, yet with the speed of an age

Springtime still manages to arrive almost on schedule

To linger on spotted skin, where the warmth is not quite as remembered

Through the closed doors and behind the drafty window panes

The tune of the songbird, upon embattled ears, has slipped off-tempo

While its appetite for the garden’s bounty has grown inexorably

The backyard is under bombardment from carcinogenic rays

Beneath the umbrella, on the patio table, a pot of tea gone cold – scones uneaten

The ruins of a perfect afternoon

Next-door, a weed-whacker shrieks, a lawnmower groans

A crow on the fence barks his growth spell to the grass

The relentless grass

Oh! The lights from the cars that flash along
Miss the beauty of nature’s countryside
“Jazz” “Green Eyes” poem
as read in quite a few venues

an amazing cat a comfort to me and all
I ask him to come and sit on the wall
As he cries Allo! Allo! Allo! in different tones
to get a photo taken smelling our golden daffodils

Snowdrops bowing their heads
among the primrose and crocus beds
lambs frolicking around
the weeping willow cascading down

Colourful sweet peas entwining the bamboo shoot canes
blackbirds returning to sing once again
pink blossom tree so high
pointing upwards to the sky

The red admiral butterfly
wings of brown and yellow
collecting pollen from the flowers
warmer weather coming forgetting showers

Pale mauve wisteria a delight to see
Blowing in the breeze
The glimpse of the golden sun
Peeping through the trees

Children making daisy chains
and playing games
Lover’s walking down the lane
Purple violets in memories of mother’s name

All these wonderful things’ take place
the beautiful bride veiled in lace
Horse’s galloping along by the surf
gods blessings of babies new births

The old devil moon drawing raging rivers that overflow
people have nowhere to go
each season is a new becoming
even the bees are humming

Passion flowers are hard to grow
stamens symbolise the twelve disciples
the taller stigma means the cross
the seeds of love are never lost

I see you
on jewel-bright Persian carpet
dead.

The sideboard shows the season. Wheat shoots
sprout in a shallow bowl, celebrating life.
Iranian New Year’s in March.
Clustered spikes stand to green attention, bound with red ribbon.
Smell of stagnant water from the bowl.
From the next apartment block, piano sounds, and caged birdsong.

You lie, still.

Waking in fevered panic, the nightmare ends. Hushed dread remains.

Two decades I watched you, fearing every spring. At other seasons
Invulnerable.
Immortal Achilles with a vernal heel.

On New Year’s Eve, you died.

They found you on the Persian carpet, keepsake of Middle Eastern days.

Arriving for your funeral, and they showed me where you’d lain.

By the piano, beneath caged birds. Piano silent, birds morose.
On the sideboard, fresh-growing wheat, red-ribbon tied. Slavic customs
for New Year.

Smell of stagnant water.
Scent of death.
Silent, midwinter sound of Spring.

Leaf covering,
gatherer of dreams,
scatter the petals
over luminous pods.
Swelling streams,
finest tissue strung,
morning silkiness.
Moth wing mother
brings you nearer
Latest dew droplets
falling finger thin.

Cloud covering,
silver shrouds grey.
Trails of threads
sewn patterns string.
Pink hues warn
of shepherd’s woe
faintly spread
from point below
Earth’s surface,
deep within energy
burst into morning.

Soon after winter shivered out,
a fine day came and I was off
to take the air, when by my boot
I saw, lit by sudden sunshine,
the Spring itself made manifest:
a single, resting butterfly,

mere inches from my foot fall,
a hasty step from nothingness.
One careless, sudden, side-ways move,
and I’d have blasted it like snow.
I stood as still as sudden death,
an arrest, catching what I saw.

But, looking blind with human eyes,
I could not see unfiltered,
and all the ready words that formed
were foolish man-made failures.
To seize the thing I had to tell
it other than it seemed to me.

A simple list of similes?
As delicate as hand-made lace?
A jewel, as rare and richly wrought
as any in the market place?
As fine as costly filigree
or painted shards of thinnest glass?

Such images were all retrod,
said nothing of the butterfly,
spoke only what I knew.
My killing jar of careful words
snuffed it clean out. No language
could catch its essence, otherness.

But, still, in second-hand netting,
with holes too wide for captured truth,
I try to hold it, take it home.
‘Look,’ I say to those who’d listen,
‘what I have here, sharp-pinned and dead.
For your delight I trapped the Spring
and put it in a poem.’

No waterlily-pink to lift the scene,
just piles of rotting leaves in shades of brown.
Two Mallards, duck and drake, begin to preen

their outer feathers, tweak their inner down.
The earth is turning slowly once again
and winterʼs Redwing visitors have flown.

A bird of prey sails through the drops of rain
as rings of water spread towards the shore.
The lake is hoping for its jewelled skein

of spawn: it waits as it has done before,
when suddenly two pairs of toads appear
from leafy hollows in the forest floor.

The wood looks old; the sky sheds tear on tear,
but spring will now return to crown the year.

Weathers rush by variably – sleet, sun, rain – even snow.
Greyish drizzle, hail, gusting storms – they all whistle past.
Meanwhile, sinuously, green tendrils emerge and grow.

Leaves rapidly start forming and flower heads budding – All the while the strangely bipolar weather continues:
Light then quickly shadow and rain clouds scudding.

Snowdrops abruptly burst through the ground
And as night flashes away and a pale dawn strikes – I hear the start-stop-start of the birdsong sound.

Next, an army of daffodils rears up like a confrontation,
Crocuses enter the foray – followed swiftly by swarming bluebells,
Compensation (I wonder?) for Winter’s colour deprivation.

You see, I filmed all this over many days and nights
And fed the harvest to the wizard inside my PC
Greedily, he consumed many thousand megabytes.

But to my intense pleasure he then rewarded me
By speeding up the captured images – seamlessly
And leaving a mad headlong gallop through Spring for me to see –

In just one moment.

What is this miracle of rebirth
That sprouts from Winter’s barren earth
Reminding us eternal Spring
Bring hope to every living thing.

Still the cruellest month,
April considers daffodils,
swirls starlings across
a cloud streaked sky
and in a reborn morning
raises the dead.

Showers, then
a mistle thrush
turns the edge
of silence.
A woman passes; inevitable
in raincoat blue.
Hooded and preoccupied,
among blood red poppies
she is almost you.

Forgive me this day,
in my ashes and regrets,
I said to the you
shaped space beside me.

‘many, many foggies’ says my driver, grinning

as we enter soup-thick cloud along the bluff below the pass called Thrumsing La

Dochen has that way of speaking English, laughingly

so jovially therapeutic

he sets the tone for what’s an otherwise long rough mountain ride across Bhutan

up-down-around the twisting road

sometimes dull and foggy

but in clear sun the view is bold

with naked cliffs streaked white by mountain freshets

tumbling sheer from secret groves above

where jade green moss, grey lichen and long strands of mist

lay still, whispering if you listen

with startling clarity from nature’s pure primeval soul

surely kindly ghosts inhabit this ancient sacred land

and sometimes, while traversing east across the royal road, each turn,

each vista is ablaze with rhododendron –

scarlet, pink, yellow, mauve,
and ivory magnolia,

and birds on iridescent wing that flit and fidget across the broad carpet

of shockingly bright spring blossoms

their radiant colors and resonant songs pierce the green dark forest

and sometimes the sky comes down

to touch the earth and pastures, high up

where yak graze and wild boar uproot the fields in bright daylight

where leopard and rare tiger roam stealthily at dusk

where snow lays close in woodland nullahs long into May

where fir and larch and hemlock stand tall and sharp against a cobalt sky

where blood pheasant, red panda and muntjac

feed passively, unseen, unheard in dense thickets

where prayer flags silently mark and bless one’s passage in the dark

while mountain breezes waft brusquely, unchecked to bend the tree tops

and dark-clouded storms roil up to dare a blood red sunset

it seems so far

this wild untrammeled land

so far from din of hectic world and troubled age

and when along the road past Thrumsing La great banks of cloud obscure it all

then wild mountain spirits cling tightly to the cliff’s bare face

Dochen’s ‘foggies’

Love in a rainbow.

When you gaze
On a hazy
Rainbow in spring.

Feel soft misty rain,
Hear birds sing.
I’ll be there.

When a field
Full of buttercups
Sweeten the breeze,

Pussy willows and Catkins
Appear on the trees.
I’ll only be
A thought away.

When you gaze
On a hazy
Rainbow in spring.

The sun’s warmth teases new shoots,
And Willow buds draw bumblebees
To early nectar.
Wood Anemones, the wonder
Of snow in Spring,
Bow to royal Bluebells;
And the busy Blackcap,
Unmasked by bare-branched trees,
Sings of his “duty-to-do-his-duty-to-do”.
The Mistle Thrush, meanwhile, is melancholy,
Despite bright Brimstone butterflies
That float and glide through woodland rides.
Leaf bud bursts upon the Oak,
And Blue Tits hunt fast-fattening caterpillars,
While the first fronds of Lady Fern uncurl
Beneath a blaze of Blackthorn strung
Along hedgebanks, yellow-splashed
With flowers of Lesser Celandine.
I think how glad I am to walk the Earth
As Spring uplifts the early Violets
And brings the Chiffchaff from afar.

But as night signals a return to roost,
I am unenvious of the stars
That watch the charm of Spring, unmoved,
And stir in me a sense of an eternity
So unlike the certainty of the seasons.

For as the passing equinox reveals
A faint celestial fox in heels,
(Or some such constellation)
Fleeing a mythical Hunter,
I feel discomforted by such universal mysteries,
And I turn, not to God or finer minds,
But merely to mock the cosmos, wondering:

‘Why the belt Orion?
Are your trousers falling down?
Are you afraid to reveal the truth
Of what lies beneath your star-studded kilt?’

The winds of March
strip from the oak
all vestiges of leaves.

The lion roars.

Flexing, curling sleepy seeds
pound upon the stony roof
that bars them from the sun.

The season weeps.

Buds will burst and splinter wide
the unconscious sheath of parenting
inhibiting their growth.

The rivers flow.

Tenants new in landmark shades
push out the brown and purple
stains of winter’s icy lease.

The lion sleeps.

She never did look back you know,
But blundered through her unsung youth
With eyes half open, heart tight closed.
The disappointment of one spring
Had sapped her early blossoming,
The hand that crushed her nubile seed
Had wantonly deprived her of
All latitudes of joy,

And every spring was unaware,
The lapwing dipped through grasses tall
And grazed the glassy water.
And summer wrapped herself around,
Extolled the beauty briefly found
In sun-kissed cheeks and dewy eyes,
Before the cool succeeding season
Turned the heart away.

Thus autumn passed, with rampant stride,
He drove through all we would delay
And cast it on the ground.
The shrivelled garden of her heart
Was rendered wide and ripped apart
By winter’s shrill falsetto cry
As by he rode and froze away
All hope of recompense.

But through the horror of that sound
She heard another sweetly drift
Into her souls cold cavity.
Look back she did, at such a spring
Robust with joy and blossoming,
Slipping down the Arctic slopes,
Blessing with a tender touch
She never now would know.

So all young maidens mark this tale
And do not cast with undue haste
Your heart upon the table.
Sadness comes as sadness must
Before we’re competent to trust,
And future springs can offer more
Than the single bursting of a flower
Within a fragile heart.

Try as she might to rein in her husband’s
Tree-strong trance, looking at the sea
Through mesmerised eyes, looking at sails – Try as she may, she fails
To divert his gaze
From the sea.
Waves crash the coast
In sequence: one, two and three,
Massaging milky foam so splendidly – Milk-white knuckles, thin wet fingers
Loving his body.
How would this feel?
Her body green and blue, carrying
Ships’ sails, dreams, adventurous tales –
How would this woman feel?
Try as she may, his wife cannot take his
Gaze from the sea.
She tries to talk about Wales,
Its mountainous calm, its people.
The sea’s sensual hush drowns her out.
He rises to his feet and offers his wife
A hand.
She sighs deeply, her dry sound
Drowned out by the cool spring sea.

The farmers
to the fields they go
Planting their seed
for crops to grow.
And Gardeners
Start to weed.
Preparing the ground
To plant their seeds. And little root Start to grow
The bud on the tree Begin to show.
The birds are awake At day break.
The day is dawning On this fine Spring Morning.

Bathed in slanting, eggnog sunlight,
the red-stemmed dogwood stands erect
by a paling fence. Pallid shadows streak
corrugated fields and I grow impatient
for spring to turn them to oceans
of rippling waves of green.

At the top of the hill, a eucalyptus tree,
planted in haste, stakes a claim to this
my cherished land, when a native oak
would have done it so much more proud.
In its stead a slender, piebald trunk
misshapen by prevailing winds.

A cacophony of pheasants erupts – splitting
my eardrums with their cackle, as they scoot
to the nearby moor; a red kite circles overhead
riding the thermals. Frozen to the bone
I lay down my fork and trowel, glancing up
at the pinkish tinge of a frost boding sky.

By the pond, a clump of narcissus
do their damndest to push on through
serried ranks of trenchant meadow grass.
Late spring or not – one small bud, all but
open. I cup its pouting lips in my hands;
each panted breath warming my palms.

The buds are coming out again!
So cry the young voices far across the garden
reaching my chair just inside the door
where I can smell the new mown grass.

A bud is broken off and rushed to show the broken shadow of her former self,
earning a sharp-tongued reproof that trees live too, like you.
Like me. Just.

Springtime should, as I sit here and think – and think.
make me hunger for more
knowing there will soon be no more buds
or Spring. Or children’s voices.

Yet still I rejoice in new life;
wonder at nature with its annual rebirth;
lose myself in the yellows and purples of Spring
and the promise of continuity.

Perhaps in years to come
when these bud-bearers run their fingers through fresh green grass,
and when flowers peep shyly through the earth;
they will remember me, when the buds come out again.

Hear that noisy cuckoo there,
thinks she’s hidden in the reeds.
You wouldn’t reckon there was
much to her, silly call apart,
but she’s an amazing lass;
she only has a private
pilot’s licence, yet in Spring
she flies from Africa to
the Fens with no chart, map or
SatNav to guide, relying
entirely on memory.
When she lands she searches out
A foster mother for her chick
Who not only helps it hatch
but feeds it as her own. Smart trick!
When the youngster’s fully fledged
real Mum leads it from the sedge
and flies it south unerringly.
Who’s a silly cuckoo?
You!

A chill is in the air as the sunrises in the sky
The heat from its rays hit the cold ground
Driving the winter chill from its grasp
Leaves start to open on the trees as the sap rises like blood inside branches
Flowers start to force their way through the cold earth
Straining to reach the sun and bust into life
The animals move around bounding through the fields
As though they have been given a new lease of life
The urge to multiply stirs with in them
A new year has begun.
The creation finally casts of its winter clothes
Freeing itself of the damp and cold
Flower after flower forces it way out of the ground
Parting the earth and covering it with a carpet of green
Buds shoot up to the sky
Soaring like a rocket to the stars
Then dark descends covering the scene with a blanket
The cold frost falls down
Enveloping the tender green shoots
Holding their advance back
The hours of darkness are long
The flora waits unmoving as though held in suspense
Then the gloom is broken as the sun starts to break over the horizon
The sky slowly turns red as the sunrises
Throwing off the night and lighting up the clouds
The sunbeams hit the ground
Suddenly the vegetation breaks into life
Ascending to the heavens
Straining to bust the confines that hold them bound
Suddenly the buds begin to break
Bursting open in a kaleidoscope colour
The barren ground is transformed
As though an artist has repainted it
The vibrant colours glowing in the sunlight
Dazzling the eye wherever you look, catching the sunlight
Holding it in their petals and immersing the panorama with splendour

The shimmering sun
on the horizon

Yellow primroses
sprouting up

Golden daffodils
holding up their trumpet heads

White snow drops bell shaped
hanging down so delicate

The cat “Jazz” in the glimpse of the sun
laying on his back
waiting waiting
for someone to tickle him

White lily pads
floating on the lakes
long necked swans gliding along

Green frogs croaking
jumping about

Lambs are born
in the early morn

Butterfly wings
are sapping the nectar

Sounds of the birds twittering
on the high branches

Children skipping along
to the hum of a song
looking at the fish pond

Some are on the swings
mums and dads watching them

The queue at the cafe
is getting longer and longer
with the ice-creams they sell

Strawberry banana chocolate
and vanilla in a cone.

People passing by
Waving to a bride
With a smile and
and breathing in the fresh air

Now the beauty
of spring time appears

In love, a delicious drowning feeling,
Where stillness surrounds us, contrasting
A movie-like, high speed madness around us,
Bypassing us, because our love is frozen in time,
Growing like the first buds in this spring passion,
Our touch electric-like, brings us closer than skin,
So close, that our hearts beat like one heart,
So close, that we dream the same dreams,
So close, that we breathe the same air,
So close, that we are one person.

These winds blow destiny! Oh do accept
this urging, blind and unknown feeling
that leaves hearts glowing and wind-swept.
Keep quiet! Do not move! Winds are revealing
your fate by carrying it on the wings of spring.

From somewhere brought these winds an urgent call.
Oh, if they did, we felt at home at last!
The skies in us would heave and fall.

But with these winds the fate just grows and blows
above us seeking its own name and ways.
We are still looking, guessing where it flows,
when winds hurl it away to outer space.

The Darling Buds

Nestled in your earth so warm
The winters chill breeze blows
The ice is hard and biting back
And not one green thing grows

You watch and wait for any sign
That it is time to leave
But still you feel that ice wind whip
And hastily retreat.

But soon the frost begins to thaw
His day is at its end
The heat begins to hit the ground
You stretch, and yawn and bend

And so a season passes on
And time for you to wake
So push out hard like a newborn babe
A new world for you awaits.

Hey day, come my way,
Leaves are growing green O.
Hey day, what do you say?
Meet me at the fair O.

There’s a man, dressed in green,
Flowers in his hair O.
He’s the one, with summer comes,
Say you’ll see me there O.

Leave alone the new mown hay,
The sun will sweat the bales O.
Dance around the maypole ground,
Your true love you’ll find there O.

The cows are in the meadow green,
Your sheep and pony fine O.
Leave them there to stand and stare,
It’s time to dance the May O.

Blossom drifts from dipping bough,
A wedding blessing gay O.
The sun shines on a lucky bride,
A-joining at the May O.