Waterbury Road<\/p>\n
Lilacs in the dooryard blooming
\nsince Grammie was a baby, a sprig
\nof a bush planted when her parents
\ngot married, first in their families
\nto own their own home, so proud
\nand pleased to see lilacs growing
\nwith their family.<\/p>\n
Those lilacs spread joyful news
\nthrough the neighborhood when Janie
\nwas born, then Grammie Maggie.
\nThat same bush, heads drooped to scrape
\nthe soil when Janie died after falling out
\nof the oak tree in the backyard, the one
\nthey chopped down a week after her burial.
\nA few years after, they thought the bush
\nwould die when Maggie\u2019s dad, James
\nsuccumbed to influenza.<\/p>\n
Winter came early that year, brutal
\nwith snowfall and spring barely made
\nan appearance; they prayed over those
\nthin, spindly shoots. Next spring,
\nthere was one flower head, a tad small
\nbut fragrant as an April breeze. Grammie
\nremembers, closes her eyes and smiles
\neach time she tells me about it.<\/p>\n
For the past five years, I\u2019ve lived here, So now, it\u2019s Grammie and me and the lilacs ~ J R Turek Hour 2<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128427"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135153,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128427\/revisions\/135153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ncaretaking my grandparents, tending
\ngardens and whatever needs doing.
\nMy first spring, Grammie put tiny flowerets
\nin our salad, out picking the best open blooms
\nbefore the sun crested Hodge Mountain.
\nGrampa wouldn\u2019t eat them, picking them out
\nlike flies and dropping them in Grammie\u2019s
\nplate. Purple flowers ain\u2019t meant for eating,<\/em>
\njust smelling<\/em>. And he loved those lilacs.
\nWe lost him in July, the end of a heatwave
\nthat sweltered us for the whole month.
\nHere\u2019s the darndest thing you will ever hear.
\nThat Saturday Grampa died, that old lilac bush
\npumped out three giant clusters of heavenly
\npurple, perfumed with angel wings. July!
\nIt was as if that bush was bruised with hurting
\nmissing him already but wanting him to have
\nher blossoms as a sendoff.<\/p>\n
\nblooming in that dooryard over a hundred years,
\nfragrant as a cherished memory, sturdy as family ties,
\nand I pray it will still be there a hundred years more.<\/p>\n