"May is the flower-wreathed bride of the year. Lovely April and beautiful June are mere handmaidens to the dew-diamond radiance of May. The pledges whispered by the rattling seed in the dry husk of September are fulfilled now in the silk-petaled allure of the receptive blossom. The pure white drifts of Large-flowered Trillium like lingering snowbanks lying late in the woods, the sky-blue dappling of Baby Blue Eyes like spilled sapphires in the jade green shade of a live oak, the lascivious delicacy of pink enfolding white Bleeding Hearts nodding coyly in the sun shaft and shadow of the forest glen like a proper but unmistakable, irresistible invitation; all of this seductive art, the dance of May, is to bring the present generation to that terrifying and wonderful commingling that defies the separateness of individuals to produce the future generation's seed. It is a daring and dangerous strategy, but exquisitely successful and as seriously beautiful as this life allows, this life that culminates in May dances.
This May-time dance floor is tender-leaved. The oak, the maple, unfurls the bright green of youth washed with a roseate blush, an evanescent glow foretelling in its fading the inevitable emerald maturity to come. The lusty uprising of the lance-leaved grasses full of sunlight distilled to sweetness enrobes the land in shaggy velvet. Even the reserved and venerable conifers are just showing tips of bright, new-minted green like small cool flames that do not consume the branches but miraculously increase them.
And, of course, the May dances, in their pre-eminence, have the best music and biggest orchestra. There is the high woodwind skirling of the shorebirds-least sandpipers, red knots, curlews and whimbrels-as they move along the water's edge like nervous smoke. The piccolo trills of Spring Peepers are fading, replaced in the rapture of firefly evenings by the softly roaring cello and bass viol of the bullfrog chorus. There is the clear fluting of thrushes, the fuzzy harpsichord trills of the warblers, the bright trumpet blasts of the geese, the chuckling bassoons of coot and mallard, the racing liquid violins of the finches, and the majestic trombone fanfares of the cranes, As the ascending Sun heats the greened Earth dance floor, waterfalls crash like ringing symbols and deep in the distance the dark tympanic rumbling of the thunderstorm murmurs of risk and renewal.
This dance, this music, this month is life at its best, marvelous, mysterious May."
©Steven Manning from his newsletter of May 2000
Image by Michele Ross
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