By Jim “Pappy” Moore

Spring is on the way! The worst of winter is behind us. Any time the temperature is between 50 and 80 is a grand time for me. Sunny days. Excellent weather for walking and enjoying the neighborhood and the local park. People out doing spring cleaning and lawn chores. The air is fresh with the smell of cut grass. It’s a glorious time to be alive.

 

It is my nature to like a new month, a new week, a new day. When you are my age, every day is a gift and you learn to treat it like that. The toll on my classmates is real. Every two months one of them passes away. Then there are the people who graduated before us and behind us. Add in the relatives near or distant, the friends near or distant, and the regularity of people passing away is steady.

 

These deaths hit the surviving spouses the hardest. Suddenly someone who has been their rock for forty or more years is gone. Nothing will fill that void, but they have to go on. Some will remarry because the only life they have known for decades has been in marriage. They don’t replace their lost loved spouse. They join with a new spouse to survive these years of their life.

 

There is a palpable uptick in positivity in our country. We are more upbeat. We feel that things which have gone wrong are being righted. There’s a sense that being proud of our country is back, and it is popular with young people and middle age people.

 

We know everything is not perfect, but we know it is grand to see stadiums full of people proud to sing The National Anthem, proud to be optimistic. There is an electricity in the air and among the people.

 

This is the most excited I have been about life in several years. I appreciate that I am alive to live this year. I am thankful that my health is better than it has been in years. I can walk without any kind of support. I don’t limp. My bones, and my joints, and my muscles are holding together. I can take a three mile walk on a sunny day on a nice sidewalk and not be chased by errant dogs running loose, and without dodging traffic.

 

As I look at the green trees against the blue sky, as I hear the birds of spring sing, I think about that line from poetry: “God’s in his heaven! — All’s right with the world!” American poet Robert Browning wrote “Pippa Passes” and published it in 1841. It is one of the fine poems I have carried in my heart since high school.

 

I’ll close by publishing the entire poem for your reading pleasure. For many of you, this will take you back to English Literature in high school. Mrs. Seago would be delighted to know I am writing about this poem in the year 2025.

 

Pippa Passes
The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn:
God’s in his heaven—
All’s right with the world!

 

Copyright 2025, Jim “Pappy” Moore. All rights reserved.