A Deep River Year
May 14,  2014
 


The hummingbirds are back, and the mosquitoes, too. This is truly the changing of seasons. I am ready to plant the tomato seedlings I have watched grow under the lights in my basement. My great uncle Emil knew that it was time to plant his fields--especially his sweet corn--when the leaves of the oak tree were the size of a squirrel's ear. For me, who does not climb up and measure the size of oak leaves, that is always around the middle of May, when the lilacs are in bloom. Right about now.

 There was a time not too long ago when lilacs could be counted on blooming around Memorial Day. Children would gather the blossoms and lay them on the graves of fallen soldiers. In this day of climate change, they are mostly finished blooming by then. But now, in the middle of May, the great clusters of purple begin to open in the midday sun, their sweet aroma filling the air. In the bleak days of winter, I search the nursery catalogs for pictures of lilacs, and the anticipation of their wondrous blooms carries me through the colorless days.

There were lilacs a-plenty when Phyllis and I were married, 21 years ago tomorrow. Phyllis and her sister went out the night before the wedding to gather lilac blooms along the country roads of Connecticut. The church and reception were decked with armfuls of those beautiful blossoms. I even wore a tie adorned with lilacs. Their blossoms still remind me of the sweetness of that day, filled with love's utter loveliness. Perhaps I am not the only one who cherishes these May beauties. Go out into the woods throughout New England, and soon enough you will come to a tall patch of lilacs. Perhaps there will be a clearing, and the lilacs will mark the place where once settlers planted a homestead. Nearby there likely will be the remnant of an old chimney, or the foundation of a little house where love tried to set roots and build a future. The lilacs still growing there are a sign that love will not give up.

 Lilacs

Should this world of mine pass away,
this old house, solid and chimneyed,
the big barn, steady under the shade
of ancient maples,
the stone paths leading to the door--
should they one day sag
 under the weight of time,
fall into themselves and slumber
under the tangles of bittersweet and ivy,
yet there shall be this:
one May morning
 the tall persistence of lilacs
will rise again into the sun and blue above,
and there will be purple clusters,
sweet as holy incense,
to hallow that day with a memory.
Perhaps someone will pass by,
see in the blooms some ancient gratitude,
and know that once a home was here,
know that once before the fall,
 the sadness, the ache of parting,
there was a joy,
know that one spring day lilacs bloomed
for us.

--Timothy Haut, May 14, 2014