Wishing the best of the spring season to you and your family, whether you celebrate Easter, Passover, or a generic Sunday!

Stop All the Clocks, Cut off the Telephone
   ~W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Rudi’s best D.C. friend, Dave, was killed today while riding his bike to meet a friend for coffee.

Dave was in his mid-50s, had a wife and a daughter whom he loved tremendously, and if my Twitter feed is any indication, was known to and respected by pretty much everyone in our area. He baked delicious bread, did IT for a living, was generous with his time and his energy, and was an outspoken and tireless advocate for safer roads and cycling infrastructure.

That he died along a stretch of road that neighbors and cyclists had for years asked the city to improve in order to make it less dangerous and less prone to drivers speeding is a particularly cruel twist of fate.

My heart is breaking for Rudi, dealing with this devastating loss at home by himself. And my heart is breaking for Dave’s wife and daughter, because I can so easily imagine myself in their place, to be robbed in an instant of what they love best by the decisions of a selfish driver. And my heart is breaking for all of us, to have lost in such a stupid fucking way a kind man who should still be alive.

‘Tis a Fearful Thing
   ~Yehuda HaLevi

‘Tis a fearful thing
to love what death can touch.
A fearful thing
to love, to hope, to dream, to be —
to be,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
And a holy thing,
a holy thing
to love.
For your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
‘Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing, to love
what death has touched.

Three beautiful things from my previous week:

1. I happened to glance up as I was carrying my lunch to the other room to see that my parents had a visitor. (Apologies for the photo quality; I was shooting through a window and a screen.)

2. At the garden work day, a few of us worked on a construction project that added some pvc piping to our infrastructure that should necessitate the garden’s master spigot, which is located in a corner of my plot, to be accessed far less often, which is more convenient for everyone.

3. Rudi and I were both home on Monday, so after mailing our taxes, we treated ourselves to a late lunch out at a local Cuban restaurant. We then followed it with a trip to Trader Joe’s, where the samples were plentiful and delicious (and included chocolate).

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

I’m up in Connecticut for a week and amongst the other things I have to work on, I brought some reading material and some WIPs. First up, finish my stripey socks, the second of which is nearly to the heel turn, and A Covert Affair by Susan Mann, the second novel in the Librarian and the Spy series, which I’d like to be able to leave behind for my mom to read.

Want to see what others are reading or knitting? Check out As Kat Knits.

The cherry blossom season has mostly come to a close, although there are still some trees with blooms around the city. Dogwoods are currently flowering, as are the redbuds, which are particularly lovely this year.

Tulips are still out, but are starting to fade a bit. The irises are next up:

We saw wisteria and lilacs starting to flower yesterday, but they won’t come into their own until later this week:

And the azaleas will soon follow. I’m hoping to make it over to see the National Arboretum’s famed collection during peak bloom later this spring.

And, as I mentioned over the weekend, the violets are gorgeous right now. I’m crossing my fingers there are still some left in my garden by the time I get home next week from my visit to New England.

When Rudi and I traveled to France in November 2008, we visited Notre Dame on our first day in Paris. I was jetlagged and definitely dozed off in a pew while a tour guide was talking to us, but I was struck by the magnificence of the building and its grand history.

Today’s fire is saddening, but when you consider how much was saved and that no loss of life — from the public, the clergy, or firefighters — occurred, it is difficult to consider it a complete tragedy.

Horrible things occur, and this is horrible indeed. But not so horrible that it stands as the final period at the end of this particular story. This is not “the end.”

Faith and love are stronger than stone and glass and centuries’ old wood.

The children’s rhyme perseveres for a reason:

Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the door and see all the people.

I have faith that the people of Paris, of France, and of the world will come together to make certain this is true and that Notre Dame is rebuilt.