Surely it’s April that should be “breeding lilacs out of the dead land”, not January? But here the buds are already beginning to show signs of breaking into life.
Mind you, unless there’s some rain soon, I don’t quite know how much energy the trees will have for producing flowers, especially as I forgot to dead head them when they finished flowering last year.
At which point, it seems appropriate to post this abandoned draft from a few years back:
She has becomean old woman, willing
to accept without demur
an offered seat and smile
when doors are held;
she finds she’s ready at all times
to criticise the young and reminisce
about ‘the Good Old Days’.
She clucks and coos at babies
and their Dads, gossips at bus stops
and in check-out queues. She fears
she has become an old woman
with selective hearing
like her mother, who listens
to the weatherman and hopes
for rain to make the lilacs bloom.
