The Waste Land
By T. S. Eliot
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth a forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
T.S. Eliot was one of the most important poets of the Twentieth Century. He was also an essayist, playwright, and both a literary and social critic. Born in the U.S., he immigrated to England in 1914 when he was 25. In 1948 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
After he converted to Christianity (Anglicanism) in 1927, noted literary figure Virginia Woolf, who was a fellow Modernist and patron of Eliot’s, predicted that he would “drop his Christianity along with his wife, as one might empty the fish bones after the herring.”
She was right about his deranged wife, but not about his Christianity. His faith played an important role in his life and in his thinking.
Lacey is my last but not least grandchild. She will be celebrating her “Sweet Sixteenth” birthday next week. I question, “Where did the time go?” We have enjoyed many trips to the Como Conservatory, where at 12, she snapped this photo of a water lily. Lacey loves nature, be it animals, flowers or the planets. Lacey also loves people and using her abilities in music and theater to bless others. I have high hopes for this special lady, and am blessed to know her.