Spring Lilacs
By David Gosselin
I.
One morning, I found lilacs in the rain:
The sun was mute, the birds had ceased their song,
The skies were dimmed by gaunt and graying clouds—
The lilacs shivered in the dawn.
Each one seemed too sweet to outlive the morn,
Thickening the air with its dying breath;
I thought of all the beauties May has borne—
How sweetly each one welcomes Death.
II.
How dreamy was the new spring day:
The streams like pristine angels sighed,
Winds swept the woods like Aeolian harps,
Only the lilacs seemed too shy.
Was mid-May’s sun not strong enough,
Or did the soft breeze come and whisper
Tidings of some approaching season—
Did she mention the coming of winter?
III.
I’ve once again wandered into the garden
Where I used to play as a little child
When a thousand flowery faces greeted me,
All of them lovely and wild.
The dreamy lavender serenely swayed,
Sending its fragrant kisses through the air,
Until the gentle breeze chased them away,
Like children laughing, free of care.
The shining dew dripped from the rose’s calyx,
Staining its crown of verdant sepals,
’Til May arrived with her brilliant rains
And spring gleamed in a thousand petals.
But of all the flowery faces I saw there,
These stood out more than all the others:
The vernal lilacs—ready to relinquish
Their breath amid the early hours.
Their fragrance stirred something deep in my soul
As I made my way through their flowery fane—
I felt something I’d never felt before
From those Lilacs in the rain.
For the soft spring-time showers now distilled
To an understanding that left me cold:
How even the sweetest of things must die
As our youth fades and we grow old.
And so I smile on this beautiful morning,
My tears falling through the perfumed air
As floods of sweet new faces welcome me
And sprightful birds trill everywhere.
The beauties of May welcome me once more,
And they flood my soul with a precious pain—
May the briefness of their beauty haunt me
Like those Lilacs in the rain.
David Gosselin is a writer, researcher and translator in Montreal, Canada. He is the founding editor of The Chained Muse and New Lyre Magazine.
Well done. As I related to you before, it's a poem that illustrates clearly your talent.
I especially savor the sense of wonder that comes when a part of a poem or other work of art affects me in a deeply personal way, all the more so when it evokes something the author probably never even consciously intended. For me, the first quatrain in verse III immediately called to mind a favorite part of my favorite work of literature, “Tale of Genji” by Lady Murasaki. That is to say, the chapter Sir Arthur Waley titled "Yugao" or “Evening Faces” in his classic English translation. Although "Yugao" in Japanese refers to a different flower than the lilac, the color purple figures prominently in “Tale of Genji”, and "murasaki" in fact means purple. Moreover, David’s “thousand flowery faces” reminded me of the myriad blooms of the award-winning roses my grandfather grew when I was a boy. Thank you, David. I almost feel guilty knowing your duties as editor necessarily draw you away from your own acts of composition. Spring Lilacs was such a joy to read and to have read, and I could hear you reciting it in my mind as I read it.