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Dave Bonta
I sit as stolidly as a column of cold ash,
longing for a bell’s clapper, or the skin
of a drum that shivers under the blows
of a pair of brushes. I have held
this shape too long, I tell myself.
The fine teeth of my thoughts
are through with falling.
Across the lawn, the French lilac
still glows green against the gray trees
as if summer could last forever –
as if a craze of twigs were some disgrace,
& not the soul’s own map –
& I feel a sigh coming toward me
from the edge of the world.
Grain by grain,
the shadows are losing their firm outlines.
I like the smell of Lilac in the winter,
You like the smell of mint in the spring.
I said, believing it,
as we stood
beneath lilacs:
"Now that I have
met you, I must
live forever."
The spring is fresh and fearless
And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
The lilac brimmed with dew.
Here in the moving shadows
I catch my breath and sing--
My heart is fresh and fearless
And over-brimmed with spring.
Nothing is new, I have seen the spring too often;
There have been other plum-trees white as this one
Like a silvery cloud tethered beside the road,
I have been waked from sleep too many times
By birds at dawn boasting their love is beautiful.
The grass-blades gleam in the wind, nothing is changed.
Nothing is lost, it is all as it used to be,
Unopened lilacs are still as deep a purple,
The boughs of the elm are dancing still in a veil of tiny leaves,
Nothing is lost but a few years from my life.
Oh, let me run and hide,
Let me run straight to God;
The weather is so mad with white
From sky down to the clod !
If but one thing were so.
Lilac, or thorn out there,
It would not be, indeed.
So hard to bear.
The weather has gone mad with white;
The cloud, the highway touch;
White lilac is enough;
White thorn too much !
The burnished glow of the old-gold moon
Shines brightly over me.
A thousand stars, like a thousand isles
In a dark and placid sea,
Bring memories of a golden night.
Bedecked in Autumn's hue
And fragrant with the lilac's bloom.
That brought me joy — and you.
About the old deserted place,
So long forsaken and forlorn,
There lingers still a touch of grace,
A fragrance every year new-born.
For lilacs there in Spring unfold
Beside the long unopened door,
Communion still they seem to hold
With those who come and go no more.
Against the window-frame they lean,
Their banners floating to the air,
And spread their arms as if to screen
The silent shadows lurking there.
Pale spires uplifted to the sun
Break into bloom as if to fill,
In memory of days long done,
The empty place with fragrance still.
Shaken,
The blossoms of lilac,
And shattered,
The atoms of purple.
Green dip the leaves.
Darker the bark.
Longer the shadows.
Sheer lines of poplar
Shimmer with masses of silver
And down in a garden old with years
And broken walls of ruin and story,
Roses rise with red rain-memories.
May!
In the open world
The sun comes and finds your face,
Remembering all.
I make my shroud but no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair,
With stitches set in even rows.
I make my shroud but no one knows.
In door-way where the lilac blows,
Humming a little wandering air,
I make my shroud and no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair.