Chaucer in the Morning

Splashing through the puddles in his duck boots, on the way to commuter rail, he felt like a kid  braving the April showers. He was catching the late train to work, and was in a surprisingly good mood for a rainy day.  He attributed the general upbeat feeling to the realization winter was really, indisputably over.

Walking along the sidewalk that parallels the tracks, he reflected on how safe and suburban his life had become. The trees were beginning to bud, the houses that abut the tracks looked trim and neat,  and robins darted here and there. A little ways up he could see his friend Annie waiting for the train. She was holding a white and purple polka-dot umbrella, and wearing a yellow raincoat.  She was slowly, strolling through puddles, in a circle, wearing her green, knee-high rain boots. 

On impulse, and for some reason he really didn’t understand, he called out:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;

No sooner had the words left his mouth than he realized he had wanted to show-off his poetry prowess. She looked up and replied with gusto:

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

He was outdone!

They both laughed, and closer now, high-fived.

“How’d you know that” she said?

“Once an English major, always an English major. Especially in April.”

copyright Christopher Donahue 2017

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