Beauty Contest

I always thought  Eliot had it wrong when he said "April is the cruelest month." 

"APRIL is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain."    Opposite sides of a coin, your eyes closed, you wouldn't know if it was April or October whipping your hair, drenching your shoes, or warming your cheeks with hot sun in cool air.    If you stared at their storm clouds, you couldn't tell spring from fall, both threatening you with a late or early snow.   But open your eyes to their dazzling fashion show.  April in bashful dewdrop pastels, and October draped in gilded robes, the threads of a life well told.   April's perfume, intoxicatingly sweet, and October's incense, the sage of the sages. One beckons you to youth; the other to truth.    But April's night sky has never known a harvest moon. October's full moon comes sneaking up through bare branches, casting orange and casting spells. It has the all answers but never tells.   And October's blue shines more triumphantly. It shines like it knows it could be its last bow. It pours through golden leaves and coaxes our tears, which I don't know why, but get harder and harder to cry year after year. And nothing hurts more than not crying.   I've been doing a lot of not crying this month, and I do hereby decree October to be more cruel April.   October has its own special kind of blue.     Tree at Holliday Park     Neil Young "Harvest Moon"