April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
From The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot
I love the scent of my neighbor's lilacs, which perfume the whole street. Memories stir: of Crash's birth, of Tom's funeral, of my own birthdays. Cool and warm, sweet and stinging.
I'm submerged in the end of semester, a swirling chaos of endings and beginnings. Planning for next year, closing off this year, graduation. Writing (four pieces due in the next week, all in various stages of completion or not, scattered across the floor of my study...).
I've little time or energy to write here, but hope keeps me pinning bits up on the wall in my study, waiting for May's open burst of time.
Photo is from Wikimedia Commons.
Well, here we have had the endless shoures soote of Aprill. There are some tulips out there, though!
ReplyDeleteLilacs! I love lilacs.
ReplyDeleteThere is a large blooming apple tree (I think) near the building of molecules and equations and the party dorm on the way to the campus center. Perhaps you might walk by it and sniff on a sunny day. I spent a heavenly hour or two there lying on the grass reading Kant.
We had a very dreary April here, just now blooming everywhere...
ReplyDeleteAnd Katherine, I adore "the building of molecules and equations" moniker. Your tree is a crabapple and indeed is heavenly!
Two years ago I was introduced to Lilacs as we drove in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and around Lake Superior. Until then, they had only been words on a page. Pictures in a book.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea what I was missing.
Now, when we take off on our summer sojourns it is the Lilacs that come to mind, and that I start looking for immediately! Joe is very patient with me, and we are like kids shouting out - "Lilacs" - whenever we see large hedges of them by the road.
In neighborhoods and small towns we get out and walk by them, and stand inhaling... hoping to keep the scent with us till the following year.
April in Pennsylvania, but it is June and July for Lilacs in Montana and Wyoming! :)
Sending you encouragement to keep pinning!
Thank you Cindy...for encouragement and the tale of lilacs....
ReplyDeleteThis sounds as busy as my life right now. We are a bit away from lilacs up here on the north coast but your picture was enough to make me remember the scent.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the end of semester and wrapping up the writing projects!
We were just discussing a spot in the backyard to which a lilac would be nice. May the hopes for May come true.
ReplyDeleteMy tale of lilacs: a neighbor in married student housing coming back with an armful as Rachel played on the front lawn waiting for her best friend and mine to arrive for our walk to campus. She handed a sprig to the toddler's imploring hand and it was sniffed and delighted in till it fell apart. Later that day--her last--seeing bush after bush as she slept and we drove toward Detroit for the baptism of the cousin finally conceived in South Bend on a trip to hers. We spoke of the joy of resurrection after my intense first year of doctoral work and I remembered Matt's proposal by the lilacs after mass in the Basilica and the perfume I bought after the bridesmaids' lunch the day before the wedding. And now lilacs, like pink dogwoods, are always my little maiden and my own maiden heart.
ReplyDeleteHoping and praying that May has brought new life and that the package on its way will be a small aid in that.
Lilacs.
ReplyDeleteIt not time yet for them here in Ohio. Mom always said every good year has a lilac bush in it. I'm not a very scent oriented person but that is one of them that gets me. I plant at least one bush at every parish to which I am assigned. The ones planted at my current assignment should be blooming for the first time this year. If yours have already passed, come to NE Ohio and enjoy ours.