Lilac Time
She loved the scent
so we would steal them for her
gather great armfuls
heedless of the hours
of labor: turning the soil,
planting deep, enriching and
oh, the endless watering
that first year. We were young
and loved her, for a time.
Now a matron, solid
in middle-age, I bury my nose
in blooms outside my daughter's
school, after a morning volunteering
in the library on research projects --
perhaps the diametric opposite
of romance. The lilacs seem
to know it, their scent a faint
echo of what once was.
We were young, loving, careless;
not even understanding how
to do the necessary work,
the patient cultivation of day
after day, year after year.
*****