Waterbury Road

Lilacs in the dooryard blooming
since Grammie was a baby, a sprig
of a bush planted when her parents
got married, first in their families
to own their own home, so proud
and pleased to see lilacs growing
with their family.

Those lilacs spread joyful news
through the neighborhood when Janie
was born, then Grammie Maggie.
That same bush, heads drooped to scrape
the soil when Janie died after falling out
of the oak tree in the backyard, the one
they chopped down a week after her burial.
A few years after, they thought the bush
would die when Maggie’s dad, James
succumbed to influenza.

Winter came early that year, brutal
with snowfall and spring barely made
an appearance; they prayed over those
thin, spindly shoots. Next spring,
there was one flower head, a tad small
but fragrant as an April breeze. Grammie
remembers, closes her eyes and smiles
each time she tells me about it.

For the past five years, I’ve lived here,
caretaking my grandparents, tending
gardens and whatever needs doing.
My first spring, Grammie put tiny flowerets
in our salad, out picking the best open blooms
before the sun crested Hodge Mountain.
Grampa wouldn’t eat them, picking them out
like flies and dropping them in Grammie’s
plate. Purple flowers ain’t meant for eating,
just smelling. And he loved those lilacs.
We lost him in July, the end of a heatwave
that sweltered us for the whole month.
Here’s the darndest thing you will ever hear.
That Saturday Grampa died, that old lilac bush
pumped out three giant clusters of heavenly
purple, perfumed with angel wings. July!
It was as if that bush was bruised with hurting
missing him already but wanting him to have
her blossoms as a sendoff.

So now, it’s Grammie and me and the lilacs
blooming in that dooryard over a hundred years,
fragrant as a cherished memory, sturdy as family ties,
and I pray it will still be there a hundred years more.

~ J R Turek Hour 2