March, it would have you know, is the first month. The first that counts, that matters. Mars wages war on the old year and begins the new. This idea of wolves and bathing is laughable, fun, maybe poetic, but it’s not how the year begins.
The year begins with velocity.
Shot from a cannon was the earliest Roman calendar. Respectful but careful praise for war, father to the wolves who founded the City. The wolves raised in the Lupercal, one the fratricide triumphant and one the wall-hopper betrayed by birds. (Vultures, if we are to believe Livy, which is an option.)
In the Roman calendar, they skipped this nonsense with January. Dry indeed! They began the year with spring. The weather changed, the days and nights ground to smooth equality, and a whole week off of school. That’s class, baby!
And so we begin the year anew. We bid farewell to February friends and now proceed to Marching mateys. Or perhaps Spring stalwarts, or Vernal bons vivants. At your own preference.
March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers. A dry March and wet May fill barns with flaxen hay. If Mars brings you war, ostinato in 5/4.
Ostinato is a neat word, not quite English, not quite not. It refers to a tattoo; a military march. It means stubborn. Or obstinate, if you’re feeling literal and perhaps querulous. An ostinato hangs on longer than seems strictly necessary for a purely rhythmic idea, just out of pure cussedness.
Holst’s ostinato in Mars is particularly fun, as it has the off-balance beauty of that 5/4 step, but crams eight notes in. Triplets, quarter-quarter, eighth-eighth-quarter, triplets, quarter-quarter, eighth-eighth-quarter. They beat a drunken hobnail goose-step under the irregularly long notes of the low brass that drag you along to the inevitable blitz of resolution and set the stage for, without overtly acknowledging, the other six movements of the suite.
The year will begin with you, or without you. The rains care not for your exhortations, but beat their unsteady patter of clangor and susurrus on the days ahead.
It’s not a bad way to welcome the year, all told. Of the sleeveless errands available to you, perhaps it is one you’d find enjoyable. Press on, in finding joy ‘twixt cradle and grave, in this, our gifted March. Tappity-tap, tap, tap-tap.