lilac time

When I lived in New York, they had posted poems randomly in the subway trains in an effort to "make bus and subway riding a more pleasurable and enlightening experience". My sweet friends Emily & Amy & I (or maybe just me) really liked one called Lilac Time. Whenever spring comes around and plants start to bud, I always think of that poem. And because my tulips are coming up, I thought I would post it for your reading pleasure:

Lilac Time
The winter was fierce, my dear,
Snowy and blowy and cold,
A heart-breaker and record-breaker,
And I am feeble and old.

But now it is lilac time.
Come out in the sweet warm air,
Come and I'll gather flowers
To put in your beautiful hair.

Let's make a bouquet of lilac
For our old bedside table.
Then the fragrance in the night
Will make me form-i-dable.

Hayden Carruth (b. 1921)
"Lilac Time" from Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey by Hayden Carruth. Copyright © 1996.