Lovely Lilacs

What's so lovely about lilacs is their everywhereness: a poet's lilacs, the Indiana lilacs of the child-me, lilacs in Tennessee around the foundations of old farm-houses, lilacs in this morning's laneway (both purple ones and white), growing so tall above the brick wall that they were unavailable for a sniff (some people stop and smell the roses, but me—it's lilacs at nose level that I find irresistible), lilacs all along someone's back fence or lining the sidewalk on the way to the campus. Gather ye lilacs while ye may.

 

That's not all I have to say about lilacs. I almost bought a lilac bush this year. I was looking for a replacement for the viburnum that gave up the ghost during winter's snows. I looked and looked at lilac bushes, but I couldn't make a decision. If I planted a lilac in that same spot, creating a dream of lilacs at the corner of my house forever, and if that lilac bush died (and it might, for who knows why the viburnum failed to thrive), then I would feel the loss too strongly to survive. I myself would die from lilac-yearning.

 

Besides, how could I choose the appropriate lilac? What I really want is an old variety, a true lilac smell (not one labeled "spicy" or "extra-sweet"). What I really want is for someone to have planted a lilac bush twenty years ago at the corner of the house. I resign myself to the fact that it's too late now for me to start anew with my own lilac bush. I'll just continue to stop and sniff every lilac I come across.

 

 

Copyright 2012 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com