Those laden lilacs
at the lawn’s end
Came stark, spindly,
and in staggered file,
Like walking wounded
from the dead of winter.
We watched them waken
in the brusque weather
To rot and rootbreak,
to ripped branches,
And I saw them shiver
as the memory swept them
Of night and numbness
and the taste of nothing.
Out of present pain
and from past terror
Their bullet-shaped buds
came quick and bursting,
As if they aimed
to be open with us!
But the sun suddenly
settled about them,
And green and grateful
the lilacs grew,
Healed in that hush,
that hospital quiet.
These lacquered leaves
where the light paddles
And the big blooms
buzzing among them
Have kept their counsel,
conveying nothing
Of their mortal message,
unless one should measure
The depth and dumbness
of death’s kingdom
By the pure power
of this perfume.
~ from The Art of Losing edited by Kevin Young
(Bloomsbury USA, 2010)
