A Constellation of Lilacs

A single line by Ferenc Juhász from "Crown of hatred and love" in The Boy changed into a Stag: Selected Poems 1949-2967.

The lilacs are creatures guided by other stars.

And a few sprigs from James Schuyler "Hymn to Life" in the collection of the same name.

And that Washington flower, the pink magnolia tree, blooms now
In little yards, its trunk a smoky gray. And soon the hybrid azaleas,
So much too much, will follow, and the tender lilac. Persia, we
Have much to thank you for, besides the word lapis lazuli.

Amy Lowell devotes some attention to the geographic dispersion of lilacs over New England by way of comment on their roots.

Lilacs,
False blue,
White,
Purple,
Color of lilac,
You have forgotten your Eastern origin,
The veiled women with eyes like panthers,
The swollen, aggressive turbans of jeweled pashas.
Now you are a very decent flower,
A reticent flower,
A curiously clear-cut, candid flower,
Standing beside clean doorways,
Friendly to a house-cat and a pair of spectacles,
Making poetry out of a bit of moonlight
And a hundred or two sharp blossoms.

Genus Syringa

Which leads to a poem by John Ashbery "Syringa" in Houseboat Days which muses upon the stars: "Stellification / Is for the few, and comes about much later / When all record of these people and their lives / Has disappeared into libraries, onto microfilm." And as tempting it would be now to invoke digital rot, we must remind ourselves that Eliott Carter set the poem to music — a different sort of starification.

And so for day 1720
29.08.2011