June 1: Lilacs, New Poem, Not Much Time

I realize, rereading my post from yesterday, I may have come across as a little callous or self-centered.  That was not my intent.  I really am trying to find the daisy in my pile of cow dung.  I'm serious about that.  SH is actually someone I care about a great deal.  She has just been very difficult for a very long time.

I don't have a lot of time to chitchat.  However, I do have a new poem today.  It was inspired by a walk I took at sunrise, before work.  The lilac bushes are coming into bloom, and, for me, that's a signal that summer has arrived.  For some reason, lilacs always fills me with hope for the future.  I associate the scent with high school graduations and accomplishment, with moving on to a bright future.  It's the optimistic side of myself I usually try to stifle.

This poem is political.  When I started to write it, I didn't intend to write a political poem.  It just happened.  I think it's pretty good.  You be the judge.

Saint Marty is taking time to smell the lilacs.

Lilacs

Early June, lilacs begin to bloom

In my backyard, along paths

I walk at sunrise.  They swell

The air with rain and dirt,

The promise of warm months

Just around the corner, a battalion

About to roll into town,

Unstoppable as a tank.

Bushes bud, slow fireworks

The color of midnight

Blueberry and silk cocoon.

By summer solstice,

Lilacs overrun my neighborhood,

The way the Mississippi overruns

Its banks during hurricanes,

The way fire and bricks and blood

Overran the streets of Los Angeles

After Rodney King.  For days,

The world smolders, burns

Purple and white, unchecked,

Until the killing heat of July

Comes, withers petals to husks

Of brown, to burned-out shells,

To reminders of that first

Crush of summer, when we all

Spill into the sun, sure,

If we shout loud enough,

Spread our lilacs far enough,

The children of America and Pakistan,
Of Israel, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan

Will somehow blossom into peace.

Summer has arrived