June Lilacs

haiku

lilacs scent my world
june goes to my head like love
overwhelms senses

This is one blog to which I would like to add one of those "scratch and sniff" cards!

What a wonderful time of year this is, there are lilacs in full bloom everywhere. As I walk through our little town the aroma pervades the air - sometimes lightly sometimes when near the trees they take over my smell entirely. The Post Office has two bushes by the door, a white and a purple planted in the same hole - sight and smell together. The old teacherage is abloom in purple, Clara has a hedge of purples in her back yard; her grandson Elliot next door has some that abut the street and the new teacherage has them in front.

My white lilac is outside the bedroom window and to open it at night scents me into dreamland. This morning I remembered a poem that I wrote a few years ago, "Pruning the Lilac" - and it brought back wonderful memories of Peter and me working together in the early spring.

Pruning The Lilac
Together we prune the lilac,
Dead branches from last summer’s drought
As I trim
Brown twigs
Fall down inside my shirt,
Into cleavage
Stick in me as I move.
He takes the more strenuous role
With the saw, and manages to scratch
Hand and arm
And him
On Coumadin,
So he bleeds all over shirt
Pants and deck.
We take a break
Bind wounds,
Then go at it again,
Finish the cutting.
The lilac bleeds in silence.

© C. Valentine