Among the Lilacs

This morning,

I worked among the lilacs -

clearing dead limbs,

thinning what had grown too wild.

The lavender ones,

planted decades ago,

stood quiet as always,

patient in their giving.

A white one grew there too,

arrived on its own,

as things sometimes do

when we’re not looking.

And now a newcomer,

lifted from beside the shed,

waits to show its color.

There is a kind of peace

in this slow tending -

not in the bloom,

but in the reaching in,

the listening,

the soft, small work

of care.

I move gently

through their branches

and am made quiet too.

GBS

2025