What comes to mind for me on May day is not the fact that it's a holiday in South Africa, Workers Day. There is a nod of acknowledgement towards Labour Day in communist countries, and I hear the faint echo of the pilots' distress call.
But no. May day for me carries a memory of an archetypal English experience. Picture graceful gardens of a manor house; lawns bordered by rhododendrons. There stands a maypole and nearby, a piper waits, ready to play a flute. Men and women clad in white, garlanded with flowers -- they're students of Emerson College -- stand in a circle, each one holding a wide ribbon, ready to dance the maypole dance. And off they go, winding up the maypole, weaving the ribbons as they pass, curve and circle, coming ever-closer to one another until it's done. A moment's pause, then the flute sets them off again. They unwind the maypole and expand to a circle once again.
Later there's a fiddler. Morris dancers hop, skip and shake their bells in that weird pagan relic. Tea, of course, and other refreshing drinks are on offer and enjoyed. Children laugh and tumble about, doing somersaults and cartwheels on the grass. Summer has begun!
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