IN PRAISE OF LILACS
We had no flowers blooming
on our block when I was six:
just one small plot of fenced
and well-defended grass,
and wild and rambling sunflowers
in the empty field behind the house.
But on the way to school
along untended walls,
as if by chance,
some lilacs grew.
My life was filled with jump ropes,
grown-ups, cats, playmates, marbles.
Then on the way to school one day
I found the fragrance, and the color,
and the magic of lilacs,
and my world enlarged
and changed.
