Sketches from the Twin Cities: Spring Sounds (like)

A sort of poem: similes of middle-school music students

By Geoffrey Dean

A recent distance learning music lesson of mine asked middle-school students to listen to Vivaldi’s “Spring” from The Four Seasons after reading his sonnet “La Primavera” (in English). Asked what spring “sounds” like to them, most wrote birds chirping, but a number of the 200+ responses were “one-of-kind.” I was moved by the many thoughtful and beautifully-phrased answers, and amused by some whimsical or even slightly jaded ones.
    In the process of reading them, the many poetic possibilities of what became a long list of thoughts and images began to “spring” up. While kicking myself for not seeing the real potential of the assignment for releasing the poet latent in each of us (I should have had them write a brief poem incorporating a given number of spring sounds), the open-endedness of the question probably yielded a greater variety of images and more originality of thought; the poems would likely have “borrowed” the spring images they had just read in the Vivaldi sonnet, and the struggle with form and rhyme might have overpowered imagination and spontaneity.
    What follows, while not exactly a poem and arranged a little sterilely in alphabetical order, still seems to have some charm as a record of my delight in cataloguing the responses. Call it a celebration of spring and the young people who are living through this particular spring, when the “loneliness in quarantine” is a lone reminder of loss and isolation in a time we traditionally associate with the joys of rebirth and community.

    Spring Sounds (like)

all the snow melting
animals making babies
animals running
annoying crickets
barbeque sizzling
baseball season
beautiful nature scenes
being warm
bike rides
birds chirping
birds coming back
birds singing
branches swaying in the wind
bright sun
breeze blowing gently
breezy
cars
classical music
dogs barking
dogs running outside
drops of rain
feeling free
flash floods rushing
flowers blooming
fresh
fresh air
frogs croaking
fun but a little boring
fun, exciting
fun time and calmness
gentle, smooth, and calm
geese squawking
Grandma
green grass and short sleeves
happy, delightful, soothing sounds
high pitched
it’s almost summer
kids playing outside
“la la la la, la la, la la la la, la la”
lawn mower
leaves rustling
lively, peaceful, quiet
loneliness in quarantine
mosquitoes buzzing
no more winter cold
outdoors
peaceful
people splashing in a pool
planes flying
playful laughter
playing sports
rain
rain as it falls on my front porch
rain splashing
replacements on houses
rivers flowing
sneezing
soft breeze
soft drizzling
soft, relaxing
spots of dirty snow
sprinklers spraying
sweet light string instrument sounds
thunder and lightning
tornado sirens
violin chirping
Vivaldi
water rushing
when flowers “spring” open
when you are jumping around
wind blown in my ears
wind howling

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A good video of Vivaldi’s “Spring,” performed by Alana Youssefian & Voices of Music, is available on YouTube:


And here is Vivaldi’s poetry for “Spring”:

    Allegro
Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,

and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.

Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar,
casting their dark mantle over heaven,
Then they die away to silence, and the birds
take up their charming songs once more.

   Largo
On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy
branches rustling overhead, the goat-herd
sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.

   Allegro
Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes,
nymphs and shepherds lightly dance beneath the
brilliant canopy of spring.

Copyright © 2020 by Geoffrey Dean