Lilacs and Lace

Lilacs
By Amy Lowell

Lilacs,

False blue,

White,

Purple,

Color of lilac,

Your great puffs of flowers

Are everywhere in this my New England.   

Among your heart-shaped leaves

Orange orioles hop like music-box birds and sing   

Their little weak soft songs;

In the crooks of your branches

The bright eyes of song sparrows sitting on spotted eggs   

Peer restlessly through the light and shadow   

Of all Springs.

Lilacs in dooryards

Holding quiet conversations with an early moon;   

Lilacs watching a deserted house

Settling sideways into the grass of an old road;

Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom

Above a cellar dug into a hill.

You are everywhere.

You were everywhere.

You tapped the window when the preacher preached his sermon,

And ran along the road beside the boy going to school.

You stood by the pasture-bars to give the cows good milking,   

You persuaded the housewife that her dishpan was of silver.   

And her husband an image of pure gold.   

Years ago, when I was a young mother, my family and I lived in a parsonage owned by the church my husband worked at. We were very limited in our finances and I was expecting our third child. I lived far away from the home I grew up in, that boasted some lovely lilac bushes. I would walk around town in spring and see yards with glorious lilacs blooming. I remember wishing I had a lilac bush of my own. I wished that someone would bring me a bouquet of the fragrant beauties. Blame it on the hormones, but I remember almost crying over the lilacs I did not have. So, years later, I thoroughly enjoy the lilac bush that my children gave to me a few Mother's Days ago. This is the first bloom from the bush this year. It isn't even quite open yet. I had to take a photo with a few of my favorite things! Enjoy!