A Pattern of Ressurection

Two generations ago, it was my great aunt Helen’s lilac.
It grew at the side of the stairs to her Victorian porch
and in May it exploded into a world of fragrance and violet.
When she died, my mother made a cutting and rooted it.

My mother planted the rootling at the back of her house when I was sixteen.
Flush with sun, the lilac grew tall, taller,
recreating its fragrant fireworks each spring without fail.
When she died, my sister made a cutting and rooted it.

My sister planted it behind her house. For years it languished
until a storm took the trees that shaded it,
and that first treeless spring the lilac lept to life
and, still living, she made a cutting and gave it to me.

Mine, half a foot tall, was planted in the far corner of my small lot,
the anchor of my garden, and three years in, it is as tall as I,
and despite the long winter, the buds are pregnant with color.
lean close and you can already smell, just a hint, it’s perfume.

By May, the lilac’s glory will fill the air with color and bouquet.
I will sit in the garden and breathe in memories of three women,
Victorian porches and fallen trees and sunshine,
and I will take a clipping and

About this poem. 

Except for a detail or two, all true.

A poem about plants, and/or love.

The picture of lilac buds was taken in my backyard.

Tom