Lilac Bloom Quotes

The lilac branches are bowed under the weight of the flowers: blooming is hard, and the most important thing is - to bloom. (“A Story About The Most Important Thing”)

Now that the lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room

Now that lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room And twists one in her fingers while she talks. "Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands"; (slowly twisting the lilac stalks) "You let it flow from you, you let it flow, And youth is cruel, and has no remorse And smiles at situations which it cannot see." I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea.

I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for me.

Others said May was best, that sweet green time when lilacs bloomed and gardens along Main Street were filled with sugary pink peonies and Dutch tulips.

Don’t deny the dreams. They’re a gift given to make your life full. Accept them. Reach for them. We are not here just to endure hard times until we die. We are here to live, to serve, to trust, and to create out of our longings.

The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A grasshopper began to chirp by the wall, and like a blue thread a long, thin dragonfly floated past on its brown gauze wings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart beating, and wondered what was coming.

The peace of Manderley. The quietude and the grace. Whoever lived within its walls, whatever trouble there was and strife, however much uneasiness and pain, no matter what tears were shed, what sorrows borne, the peace of Manderley could not be broken or the loveliness destroyed. The flowers that died would bloom again another year, the same birds build their nests, the same trees blossom. That old quiet moss smell would linger in the air, and the bees would come, and crickets, the herons build their nests in the deep dark woods. The butterflies would dance their merry jug across the lawns, and spiders spin foggy webs, and small startled rabbits who had no business to come trespassing poke their faces through the crowded shrubs. There would be lilac, and honeysuckle still, and the white magnolia buds unfolding slow and tight beneath the dining-room window. No one would ever hurt Manderley. It would lie always in its hollow like an enchanted thing, guarded by the woods, safe, secure, while the sea broke and ran and came again in the little shingle bays below.

Dutifully, the Count put the spoon in his mouth. In an instant, there was the familiar sweetness of fresh honey—sunlit, golden, and gay. Given the time of year, the Count was expecting this first impression to be followed by a hint of lilacs from the Alexander Gardens or cherry blossoms from the Garden Ring. But as the elixir dissolved on his tongue, the Count became aware of something else entirely. Rather than the flowering trees of Central Moscow, the honey had a hint of a grassy riverbank . . . the trace of a summer breeze . . . a suggestion of a pergola . . . But most of all there was the unmistakable essence of a thousand apple trees in bloom. "Nizhny Novgorod", he said. And it was.

Spring as always was in full bloom, the breeze laden with lilac, the brush flanking the path rustling with life.

The cold goblin spring of the crocuses was past. The frail and chilly fairy spring of the daffodils was past. The springtime for mankind had arrived, and the blooms of the lilac bowers outside Redwine's church hung flatly, heavy as Concord grapes.

The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air.

Of course to one so modern as I am, `Enfant de mon siècle,’ merely to look at the world will be always lovely. I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for me. Linnaeus fell on his knees and wept for joy when he saw for the first time the long heath of some English upland made yellow with the tawny aromatic brooms of the common furze; and I know that for me, to whom flowers are part of desire, there are tears waiting in the petals of some rose. It has always been so with me from my boyhood. There is not a single colour hidden away in the chalice of a flower, or the curve of a shell, to which, by some subtle sympathy with the very soul of things, my nature does not answer. Like Gautier, I have always been one of those ‘pour qui le monde visible existe.

The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a blue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze wings.

She wants lilacs in her wedding bouquet." "Okay . . ." Nevada had said she wanted carnations, but we could stuff some pretty pink lilacs in there. I didn’t see the problem. "Blue," Arabella squeezed out. "She wants blue lilacs." No and also no. "Nevada . . ." "I had to hide in a bush of French lilacs yesterday and they were very pretty and smelled nice. The card on the tree said, ‘Wonder Blue: prolific in bloom and lush in perfume.’" I googled French lilac, Wonder Blue. It was blue. Like in your face blue. "Why were you hiding in a bush?" "She was being shot at," Arabella said with a sour face. "So you stopped to smell the lilacs while people were shooting at you?" I couldn’t even.

In January the lavender heather and white candytufts would bloom. February perked up the plum tree, and March would bring forth the daffodils, narcissus, and moonlight bloom. April lilacs and sugartuft would blossom along with the pink and bloodred rhododendrons, bluebells, and the apple tree in the victory garden. As the weather warmed, miniature purple irises would rise amid the volunteers of white alyssum and verbena. The roses, dahlias, white Shasta daisies, black-eyed Susans, and marigolds would bloom from late spring to early fall. Leota could see it. She knew exactly

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, And thought of him I love.

Before that first line of pale chalk, before the underdrawing fleshes out into shapes and proportions, there is a stab of grief for all the things she didn't get to paint. The finches wheeling in the rafters of the barn, Cornelis reading in the arbor, Tomas bent over in his roses in the flower garden, apple blossoms, walnuts beside oysters, Kathrijn in the full bloom of her short life, Barent sleeping in a field of lilacs, the Gypsies in the market, late-night revelers in the taverns…. Every work is a depiction and a lie. We rearrange the living, exaggerate the light, intimate dusk when it's really noonday sun.

Poem: Roses And Rue (To L. L.) Could we dig up this long-buried treasure, Were it worth the pleasure, We never could learn love's song, We are parted too long. Could the passionate past that is fled Call back its dead, Could we live it all over again, Were it worth the pain! I remember we used to meet By an ivied seat, And you warbled each pretty word With the air of a bird; And your voice had a quaver in it, Just like a linnet, And shook, as the blackbird's throat With its last big note; And your eyes, they were green and grey Like an April day, But lit into amethyst When I stooped and kissed; And your mouth, it would never smile For a long, long while, Then it rippled all over with laughter Five minutes after. You were always afraid of a shower, Just like a flower: I remember you started and ran When the rain began. I remember I never could catch you, For no one could match you, You had wonderful, luminous, fleet, Little wings to your feet. I remember your hair - did I tie it? For it always ran riot - Like a tangled sunbeam of gold: These things are old. I remember so well the room, And the lilac bloom That beat at the dripping pane In the warm June rain; And the colour of your gown, It was amber-brown, And two yellow satin bows From your shoulders rose. And the handkerchief of French lace Which you held to your face - Had a small tear left a stain? Or was it the rain? On your hand as it waved adieu There were veins of blue; In your voice as it said good-bye Was a petulant cry, 'You have only wasted your life.' (Ah, that was the knife!) When I rushed through the garden gate It was all too late. Could we live it over again, Were it worth the pain, Could the passionate past that is fled Call back its dead! Well, if my heart must break, Dear love, for your sake, It will break in music, I know, Poets' hearts break so. But strange that I was not told That the brain can hold In a tiny ivory cell God's heaven and hell.

Searching the cherry wood breakfront, I find the tall crystal vase she likes. As I arrange the lilac blooms, a silent question leaves me breathless, as if a heavy boot stood on my chest: When she’s gone, what will I do with all her treasures? Who will remember what she went through to get here? Who will remember her triumph?

Summer, when apple blossoms bloom, roses rise, lilacs lie, dandelions are dandy, and daisies are doozies, a time when flies fly, bugs bug, bees be, swallows swallow, and ducks duck.

London, 1939: “The forsythia and dark mauve lilacs bloomed enchantingly, luxuriantly, in the old gardens in Forest Hills and the daffodils gleamed from the broad expanses of the parks.

An upland hollow and mist beneath the moon—a veil of mist over apple blossoms and the heavy bloom of an ancient lilac bush beside the ruin of a farmhouse burned these sixty years and more.

The girls stepped back into the canoe and paddled off. As they rounded the next bend, Helen cried, “There’s the Lilac Inn dock!” When the canoe came abreast of the dock, Nancy secured it to a post. The girls hopped out and started up the path that led to the inn. On both sides of the path were groves of lilac trees which displayed a profusion of blooms, from creamy white to deep purple.

You plot, daily. Face down circumstance. Measure out your life with...not coffee spoons--pills. Line them up with breakfast, lunch, supper. Never mind mermaids, and lilacs in bloom, and all that stuff. He hadn't a clue.

MAY IN MINNEAPOLIS IS LILAC TIME. AS IF TO COMPENSATE for the punitive winter, the city explodes with flowers overnight—making it, if only for a week or two, one of the most beautiful places on earth. First there are sunny starbursts of forsythia; then the cherry and dogwood trees burst into life, showering petals everywhere, pink and cream, drifting thick as snow on the sidewalks. But it is the lilacs that truly herald the coming of spring: lavender and white and blue and sometimes a purple deep as grapes, they bloom in the alleys and over backyard fences and in graveyards. Beauty is everywhere, including the most unexpected places. There is no respite from it.

Flowers remind us to put away fear, to stop our rushing and running and worrying about this and that, and for a moment have a piece of paradise right here on earth. God offers healing through flowers and brings us closer to Him.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide, Over the dense-pack’d cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.

The desert. No seasons of bloom and decay. Just the endless turn of night and day. Out of time: and she is gazing- not over it, taken into it, for it has no measure of space, features that mark distance from here to there. In a film of haze there is no horizon, the pallor of sand, pink-traced, lilac-luminous with its own colour of faint light, has no demarcation from land to air. Sky-haze is indistinguishable from sand-haze. All drifts together, and there is no onlooker; the desert is eternity.

O were my love yon Lilac fair, Wi' purple blossoms to the Spring, And I, a bird to shelter there, When wearied on my little wing! How I wad mourn when it was torn By Autumn wild, and Winter rude! But I wad sing on wanton wing, When youthfu' May its bloom renew'd. O gin my love were yon red rose, That grows upon the castle wa'; And I myself a drap o' dew, Into her bonie breast to fa'! O there, beyond expression blest, I'd feast on beauty a' the night; Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest, Till fley'd awa by Phoebus' light!

It is an illusion that we were ever alive, Lived in the houses of mothers, arranged ourselves By our own motions in a freedom of air. Regard the freedom of seventy years ago. It is no longer air. The houses still stand, Though they are rigid in rigid emptiness. Even our shadows, their shadows, no longer remain. The lives these lived in the mind are at an end. They never were . . . The sounds of the guitar Were not and are not. Absurd. The words spoken Were not and are not. It is not to be believed. The meeting at noon at the edge of the field seems like An invention, an embrace between one desperate clod And another in a fantastic consciousness, In a queer assertion of humanity: A theorem proposed between the two— Two figures in a nature of the sun, In the sun’s design of its own happiness, As if nothingness contained a métier, A vital assumption, an impermanence In its permanent cold, an illusion so desired That the green leaves came and covered the high rock, That the lilacs came and bloomed, like a blindness cleaned, Exclaiming bright sight, as it was satisfied, In a birth of sight. The blooming and the musk Were being alive, an incessant being alive, A particular being, that gross universe.

Now that lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room And twists one in her fingers while she talks. 'Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands'; (Slowly twisting the lilac stalks) 'You let it flow from you, you let it flow, And youth is cruel, and has no remorse And smiles at situations which it cannot see.' I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea.

The only things in the room that she felt any connection to were half a dozen flower postcards pinned to the wall above her desk. The red and white tulip by Judith Leyster. The vase of white lilac by Manet. The bowl of blowsy roses by Henri Fantin-Latour. The vase of tumbling blooms by Brueghel- lilies and tulips, fritillaries and daffodils, carnations and snowdrops, cornflowers and peonies and anemones. Those flowers had all died four hundred years ago, but that first week back at work, they planted a seed in Lara's heart.

Hesitantly, Psyche reached out her arms. Instead of a scary shape of a monster, she felt a set of feminine shoulders as refined as her own. She moved her hands over the tender smooth skin, which was warm with life. Just the touch alone gave her a tingling sensation she had never felt before, a stroke of strange pleasure. Cupid leaned over and buried her face on the maiden's breasts then inhaled her sweet-scented skin, inhaling like it was the first rainfall after millennia of droughts, like the last bloom of the last lilac tree on earth. Psyche's eyes fluttered closed, and a soft sigh left her mouth. Without realizing it, she had her delicate arms around the invisible goddess and felt the gentle feathers of her folded wings.

The back of the house looks out onto a wide lawn and beyond it, a lake. At the bottom of the lawn is a pool, which is lined with slabs of slate so that the water is always cold and clear, even on the hottest days, and in the barn there is an indoor pool and a living room; every wall of the barn can be lifted up and away from the structure, so that the entire interior is exposed to the outdoors, to the tree peonies and lilac bushes that bloom around it in the early spring; to the panicles of wisteria that drip from its roof in the early summer. To the right of the house is a field that paints itself red with poppies in July; to the left is another through which he and Willem scattered thousands of wildflower seeds: cosmos and daisies and foxglove and Queen Anne’s lace.

It was Spring, and yet it wasn't. It was not the land I had once roamed in centuries past, or even visited almost a year ago. The sun was mild, the day clear, distant dogwoods and lilacs still in eternal bloom. Distant- because on the estate, nothing bloomed at all. The pink roses that had once climbed the pale stone walls of the sweeping manor house were nothing but tangled webs of thorns. The fountains had gone dry, the hedges untrimmed and shapeless. The house itself had looked better the day after Amarantha's cronies had trashed it. Not for any visible signs of destruction, but for the general quiet. The lack of life. Though the great oak doors were undeniably worse for wear. Deep, long claw marks had been slashed down them. Standing on the top step of the marble staircase that led to those front doors, I surveyed the brutal gashes. My money was on Tamlin having inflicted them after Feyre had duped him and his court. But Tamlin's temper had always been his downfall. Any bad day could have produced those gouge marks. Perhaps today would produce more of them.

The rapid growth of Message- combined with an outpouring of florists offering consultations in the language of flowers to the streams of brides Marlena and I turned away- caused a subtle but concrete shift in the Bay Area flower industry. Marlena reported that peony, marigold, and lavender lingered in their plastic buckets at the flower market while tulips, lilac, and passionflower sold out before the sun rose. For the first time anyone could remember, jonquil became available long after its natural bloom season had ended. By the end of July, bold brides carried ceramic bowls of strawberries or fragrant clusters of fennel, and no one questioned their aesthetics but rather marveled at the simplicity of their desire. If the trajectory continued, I realized, Message would alter the quantities of anger, grief, and mistrust growing in the earth on a massive scale. Farmers would uproot fields of foxglove to plant yarrow, the soft clusters of pink, yellow, and cream the cure to a broken heart. The prices of sage, ranunculus, and stock would steadily increase. Plum trees would be planted for the sole purpose of harvesting their delicate, clustered blossoms and sunflowers would fall permanently out of fashion, disappearing from flower stands, craft stores, and country kitchens. Thistle would be cleared compulsively from empty lots and overgrown gardens.

This Compost" Something startles me where I thought I was safest, I withdraw from the still woods I loved, I will not go now on the pastures to walk, I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea, I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me. O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken? How can you be alive you growths of spring? How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain? Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you? Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead? Where have you disposed of their carcasses? Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations? Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat? I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd, I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through the sod and turn it up underneath, I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat. 2 Behold this compost! behold it well! Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person—yet behold! The grass of spring covers the prairies, The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden, The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward, The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches, The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves, The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree, The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on their nests, The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs, The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the colt from the mare, Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves, Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in the dooryards, The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead. What chemistry! That the winds are really not infectious, That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which is so amorous after me, That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues, That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it, That all is clean forever and forever, That the cool drink from the well tastes so good, That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy, That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me, That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease, Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease. Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient, It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions, It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseas'd corpses, It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor, It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops, It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.

In silence we shall love, " because for you and me It is enough without words that are for those Who do not know a different way to say How beautiful is the blooming of the lilac flower" The Lilac Flower ….. Aric Einstein 1939-2013 This week Aric Einstein passed away. For so many Israelis (and for me) Aric Einstein was the sound track of our life. An amazing singer song writer and person. Except for the fact that he sang amazing songs, Aric Einstein was a modest person who lived his life in a simple modest way. In the next days I will post some more quotes from his songs.

That child would forever play in the gardens and dance with the rain. The child who would bury her face into lilacs and roses and blooms of hyacinth, and breathe in their sweet perfumes. She could ride on the wind and bathe in the stars. She who danced beneath the moon hearing music of her own as she ran through the shadows of the forest. The same child who scaled barefoot the cliffs of her glen and stripped her clothes off to stand naked in the rain while she gazed out over the waterfalls. (c)

Why would you ever cut the blooms off the rosebush? It was one of the only truly useful things she ever taught me: Stress stimulates growth. Sometimes, in order to make something develop in the right direction, you have to hurt it. She put the shears in my hand and pointed to a few places on a lilac plant. She showed me which flowers were fading. She told me that if I didn’t remove the still-pretty flowers now, there wouldn’t be any next year.

But it is the lilacs that truly herald the coming of spring: lavender and white and blue and sometimes a purple deep as grapes, they bloom in the alleys and over backyard fences and in graveyards. Beauty is everywhere, including the most unexpected places. There is no respite from it.

At any given moment there is someone getting what they always wanted. I know no quicker way to ruin a day than to dwell on this. Some Nights Some nights she walks out to the driveway where the lilacs bloom and lies down on the warm pavement even though the neighbors will see and wonder what kind of woman does such things.

My eyes bloom as I meet a silk as smooth as water. It shines like a pool of opals. The connection is tender and romantic, like how the feeling of summer swelled up within Romeo when he first laid eyes on Juliet. She was beautiful, as fair as their beloved Verona. And here, this dress reminds me of all the loveliness of Luna Island. It's hand dyed soft colors--- blush and blue, lilac and lemon--- like a sunset sky above island waters. A blue sash cinches the waist, and the bow in the back fans out into multiple ribbons, each one a color featured on the dress. Labyrinthine embroidery coils into rose-like shapes, and ruffled sleeves remind me of cream puff shells.

It was already spring, brilliant the way springs were in Philadelphia. The forsythia had passed their prime, but the dogwoods and the lilac were in bloom and the windows were open in the living room...

There are times when Los Angeles is the most magical city on Earth. When the Santa Ana winds sweep through and the air is warm and so, so clear. When the jacaranda trees bloom in the most brilliant lilac violet. When the ocean sparkles on a warm February day and you're pushing fine grains of sand through your bare toes while the rest of the country is hunkered down under blankets slurping soup. But other times, like when the jacaranda trees drop their blossoms in an eerie purple rain, Los Angeles feels like only a half-formed dream. Like perhaps the city was founded as a strip mall in the early 1970s and has no real reason to exist. An afterthought from the designer of some other, better city. A playground made only for attractive people to eat expensive salads.

He wondered if she knew how much he needed her.  He wondered if the lilacs were still in bloom, and what she would have done if he really had broken one off that day in her garden and given it to her, and suddenly wished with all his heart that he had.

She moved to the side of the walk and crushed a lilac bloom to her nose. “What do we need to do to get him out?” Lincoln snapped a small branch off and passed her the blossom. “You know another way to tell if someone is lying?” She shook her head, staring down at the grouping of tiny purple flowers. “They change the subject.” He tipped her chin up with his knuckle, his lips flattening. “Hannah Gregory, I can’t help your beau if you won’t tell me the truth.” She sputtered, “My—my—my what?

Sorrel always thought herself happy in the little village by the sea. She was content among her flowers and specimen trees, the extraordinary roses and lilacs, sweet peas and hydrangeas that bloomed- somehow simultaneously and for months beyond reason- in the Nursery. She found great pleasure in picking the pears, cherries, and apples for Nettie's tarts, the tender young peas and beans, the lettuce so green it glowed, and the nasturtiums and violas that her sister used in her salads. She was grateful for Patience's remedies on the rare occasion when she felt ill. But Sorrel's hands were happiest deep in the soil and curled around the stems of the flowers she grew and arranged.

When spring came around, and the lilacs bloomed, Franny began to leave blank journals on the bureau in Maria’s room in the library, and every week they were taken home by girls who questioned their worth in the modern world. Walking past Leech Lake, Franny often spied one or two perched on a rock, writing furiously in their journals, clearly convinced that words could save them.

December" Here lies my lament Deep beneath the cold, hard ground Where the lilacs bloom (2007)

Taryn finally comes down. She's been bathed in lilac dew and wears a gown of incredibly fine layers of cloth on top of one another, herbs and flowers trapped between them to give the impression that she's this beautiful, floating figure and a living bouquet at the same time. Her hair is braided into a crown with green blooms all through it. She looks beautiful and painfully human. In all that pale fabric, she looks like a sacrifice instead of a bride. She smiles at all of us, shy and glowingly happy.

People found out there that there was such a thing as honeysuckle left in the world. There was the entrancing pale gold of lemon lilies in the shadows under the lilac-trees, and the proud white iris was blooming all along the old brick walk worn smooth by the passing of many feet. Away far down Marigold knew the misty sea was lapping gladly on the windy sands of the dunes. Mr.

On some nights it's best to stop thinking about the past, and all that's been won and lost. On nights like this, just getting into bed, crawling between clean white sheets, is a great relief. It's only a June night like any other, except for the heat, and the green light in the sky, and the moon. And yet, what happens to the lilacs when everyone sleeps is extraordinary. In My there were a few droopy buds, but now the lilacs bloom again, out of season and overnight, in a single exquisite rush, bearing flowers so fragrant the air itself turns purple and sweet. Before long bees will grow dizzy. Birds won't remember to continue north. For weeks people will find themselves drawn to the sidewalk in fount of Sally Owen's house, pulled out of their own kitchens and dining rooms by the scent of lilacs, reminded of desire and real love and a thousand other things they'd long ago forgotten, and sometimes now wish they'd still forgotten.

You know, I’m getting really tired of your threats, Nyktos. You could actually think to—” Attes cut himself off with a gasp as the scent of freshly bloomed lilacs filled the space. “Holy fuck.

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”:

A marbled arch framed a midday sky above. In the garden below, lilacs bloomed, and their clean scent mingled on the breeze, blowing back into the alcove, rustling the pages strewn on his desk. Taunting him.

It's 2000, and I'm forty, and I have a real home at last. I've dropped my bags at SL's door. The house itself is composed of his skin and thought. Nearby, lilacs bloom in the garden door. Or are they hyacinths? "My mind forgets / The persons I have been along the way," Borges said. And yet it's those persons - in addition to my I - SL wants to hear about; he says they're a part of who I was. Oh, Lord, don't ever let this end: he smells like no one else on earth, and he sounds like no one else on earth. (SL's voice is so deep that people often ask him to speak up, but he is always speaking up.)

We come into the world alone...but we come bound by the deeds and courage, the hopes and dreams, the joys and sorrows of our ancestors.

She had brown hair, cut in swirls around her face, soft blue eyes, and a bounce in her step. I wondered why she was even here, when she could just be out in society with age on her side. Linda told me her boyfriend was drafted and would be leaving for Vietnam. He didn’t want to get married, so she was giving the baby up for adoption. She seemed sad about that, like she would have married him. I knew she came from the good side of town because she had crisp, clean, fashionable clothes. On sunny days, we liked to hang out in the back yard. Over by the large oak tree were several Adirondack slatted chairs. It was serene out there; nobody from the street could see us because of the height of the brick wall. The yard was dotted with a few stately oak trees and the grass was lumpy, but green. Lilac bushes lined the building and were in full bloom when I arrived. The scent of the lilacs brought a fresh longing for the days when we lived in the city. Mom loved lilacs. When I was little, she would cut a fresh bouquet from the bushes in our back yard and arrange them in a tall drinking glass on the kitchen table. They filled the house with their luscious scent. I’d put my nose right into the blooms and give a good sniff. I marveled at the fluted horn blossoms that dotted each branch. I could never inhale enough of their sweetness. Before we moved out to Glenview and lived in our Chicago bungalow on Fairfield Avenue, we had lilacs and grapes along the fence and lilies of the valley along the back-yard sidewalk that led to the alley. Oh, how I missed that yard in the city! You could pick the grapes right off the vine and pop them into your mouth whenever you had a hankering for some fresh fruit. I thought it was glorious to have a fresh supply offered right from nature. I remembered how they popped and squished making purple stains on the sidewalk when you stepped on them. We also had lavender irises that got full of ants when they were budding. I guessed they were just too sweet. The days at the home stretched like the horizon