Sweet Lilacs

Oh the sweet smell of lilacs...

I have such precious memories of my family's back yard...the backyard of my childhood. To a young girl it seemed a fairy tale world. A place to lie on a soft, weathered quilt and dream the dreams of a young girl.

Willow trees provided deep shade while

this haven's flower beds were filled to capacity

with tulips in the Spring....roses in the Summer.

But oh, the lilacs...purple, pink and white lilacs. I would gather them and place them on my night stand. How sweet their scent....making pleasant dreams a certainty.

The Lilacs Mother Planted

I listened by the doorstep as the evening shadows fell,

While from the distance floated the faint tinkling of a bell,

The night hawk circled overhead then dropped straight down below,

The same as when I first lived there, in childhood, long ago.

The trees have grown much taller in the yard where once I played,

And now looked so majestic in their summer robes arrayed;

And near the walk the lilacs flung their fragrance to the air

The lilacs that my darling mother planted for us there.

Ah, yes, what tender memories are forced on us again,

Who leave our home in boyhood days and then return grown men;

To seek again the playgrounds which in youth we loved so well,

The shade beneath the apple tree, the old pump at the well,

The woodpile, and the cellar door, the dear old blacksmith shop,

The granary that held the corn with martin box on top.

But dearer than the playgrounds was the perfume in the air,

From those dear lilac bushes that my mother planted there.

Oh, sweet and fragrant lilac, the one she loved so well,

Thy fragrance brings to memory sad thoughts I cannot tell;

Sweet lullabies of childhood sung at the evening rest,

By mother clasping closely the one she loved the best.

A voice that gently whispered sweet words of love to me,

A face so kind and gentle, a heart with love so free;

Still yet my heart throbs feel them, still yet I see them there,

When lilacs that she planted with fragrance fill the air. ~Ed Blair.

"If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends and nature; and the greatest of these, at least the most constant and always at hand, is nature."

~Naturalist, John Burroughs Wishing you all a sweet week... Hugs, Susie Q