To paraphrase
Walt Whitman without the mournful reference to Lincoln’s assassination,
this is when Lilacs bloom in the dooryard. Or in the case of the Murfin Estate,
flanking the sidewalk from Ridge Avenue in Crystal Lake. This is the first time since Kathy and
I planted them in 2018 that they have fully bloomed—an occasion of much joy
at the homestead. That
recalls old Murfin Verse.
One early
poem from my high school days in Skokie, Illinois has
apparently been lost. It was a reverie
about a bike ride on a Spring night. It began “With Lilacs in his well-worn hat/he
rode the evening day away…” As juvenilia
it is probably no great loss.
Sometime
around 2000 I penned this memory piece, a copy of which was discovered
on a folded typescript a few years ago by my oldest daughter, Carolynne
Larsen Fox.
Lilacs
There were Wyoming
lilac caves
from which we went Crocketing
in that sweet aroma twined
with the musk of dead raccoon
nestled on our scalps.
Grandma’s bathroom
tiled black and coral,
pink flamingoed mirrors,
crisp towels and Lifebuoy
where parchment hands clasped
lilac dusting puff
from the mother-of-pearl canister
to finish Sabbath ablutions.
The two seat barber
shop
with trout and geese,
Field & Stream and Argosy,
and Dizzy Dean’s laconic call
where Swisher Sweets
and lilac water splashed
on new mown skulls
made a Saturday man.
The Skokie nights
with lilacs in my well-worn hat
I rode the evening day away,
peddled into adolescent reverie,
sang the long gone partings
of two infant nations’ war,
chanted dreams of glory verse
“When lilacs last in the dooryard
bloomed.”
The Chicago days
when only lilac could wrap
Carolynne in fleecy warmth
or cotton fluff,
green eyes, and Farah Fawcett hair,
Rick Springfield and Menudo,
a laughing daughter of lavender
secrets.
And now the ancient
lilac grows
at the marked corner of my lot
overgrowing three surveyors lines,
half dead wood but blooming yet
although box elder and weedy elm
with youth throw their vigor
through the tangles.
Lilacs, lilacs pace my
life
And count my springs.
—Patrick Murfin
Circa 2000
Lilacs in a cold Spring rain.Back
when I was a janitor at Briargate School in Cary, Illinois
a cool, foggy morning inspired this verse, a version of which
was included in my 2004 Skinner House Books collection We Build
Temples in the Heart.
Lilacs Again
Lilacs in the soft gray glove
of a
cold wet spring—
“Where has spring gone?”
demanded
the shivering lips
as the
asker speeds
to a
cozy nest
of
cappuccino and scones.
As if spring were all red and yellow tulips
brilliant,
tall and proud,
swaying
with God’s breath
amid
the verdant sweep,
dappled
with sun and shade,
filtered
through a glory of apple blossoms
under a
perfect sky.
And when the days pass and the gray is vanquished,
the sun
restored to its throne,
the
lilacs, past perfection,
wilt
and brown along their tips.
“Too bad the lilacs failed this year,”
the
morning voice
refreshed
by proper spring,
chirps
with the barest trace
of
disappointment.
—Patrick
Murfin
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