"The Lilacs Were Starting to Bloom" by Johny Widell, Jackie Joy, Nellie W., and Peter Fried
We had a fantastic session of our Middlebury Zoom group on Wednesday. Here are four amazing pieces contributed by Johny, Jackie, Nellie, and Peter. I hope you enjoy them!
The Lilacs Were Starting to Bloom
by Johny Widell
The lilacs were starting
to bloom, and that meant we were
fully into Spring.
In a few weeks, we'd be planting the garden.
The apple blossoms would come out any day
and the orchard behind the house would become
a sea of white.
In no time
white petals would fly
and soon
corn would be high and green.
Soon
leaves would begin to change and apples
(did I ever see them green?)
would be red and yellow ripe and falling from the trees.
The leaves,
the leaves red and orange and yellow flying on the breeze.
I would feel that first breath of winter,
shortened days, the smell of chill
on the night air,
bitter cold and snow blowing
against my face and neck,
all the branches except a scattering of
golden leaved oaks,
turned to sticks,
gray sticks
cold against the gray white sky.
Now I see these first blooms of lilacs,
soft purple in a vase on the altar
with deep purple tulips
behind the names of the dead.
“The Lilacs Were Starting to Bloom”
by Jackie Joy
The lilacs were starting to bloom, and I knew I would make it.
Lilacs - my favorite scent next to fresh cut grass.
The winter has surely passed, and summer is around the bend.
River time is prime time, and I indulge frequently.
Yesterday, with Violet - 8
Today, with Amaryllis - 3
These two Angels are introducing me to a childhood I never had.
ACA is introducing me to the childhood I did have and have successfully blocked out.
I stumbled across In The Rooms and Hurrah!!!!
I found not only CoDA, but also the crème de la crème ACA.
I always thought I was an Adult Child of an Alcoholic.
When someone introduced themselves as an Adult Child, it hit me.
I’m an Adult Child.
I am an Adult Child.
That statement floored me and fit me to a T.
I am an Adult Child.
“We Agnostics” in Bucharest
by Nellie W.
Gabi spends time with young females with flower names:
Violet, Amaryllis, Lily, Rose, and the two Lilacs.
They would amble down rivers on rafts, inner tubes and inner turmoil
Lightness and giggles being met with every buffet
Magic-described summers without sounding cloying
The ones where one can only think childhood thoughts:
Candy is most exciting, followed by horses, dried meat, sausage
Sock feet inside the apartment, bare feet outside
Memorizing the dimensions of the shared bedroom
Drawing the schematics of the escape routes,
Boxes and blocks as best toys
Then the Ceaucescu regime crashed their friendship
Gabi could no longer learn from children
Rose gushed about the presidential scepter
Amaryllis praised everything--she was an artist after all
Violet, a Hungarian, hated violence, and Operation Danube. She gushed with happiness.
Lily’s Jewish father’s language acumen allowed him to rise in the party and newspaper
Knowing English, they may have called her “Sue”, or ‘Shula’ with Hebrew affectation.
That would have been worse! Even though a cousin had made aliya and moved to Israel
Lily was the romanized and Romanian-ized version.
She wanted to be a part. Not a sticky-out part like her proboscis.
It was clear: God was the problem.
So Lily got hold of a gun.
Lily took the machine gun, in her eight-year-old grip,
Pointed it at the sky,
and killed God.
Her hatred, her intolerance, her political drive
Ripened that summer
They created her
They and those Romanian flower girls who had it so easy.
It was all a foundry: molten metal poured into her
childhood shaped mould, and hardened.
God was the problem and Lily killed God
But the twin stars of gossip, the Lilacs
They were becoming obsessed with their sameness.
Learning to listen and report.
“The nail that sticks out gets the hammer”
“Life is shit.”
“We’ll have the party look into your record.”
The lilacs were beginning to bloom.
“The Lilacs Are Starting to Bloom”
by Peter Fried
The lilacs are starting to bloom.
But who cares, honestly?
I mean, did they have lilacs at Buchenwald,
Treblinka, Auschwitz, Chelmno, Sobibor Theresienstadt?
I don’t know. May be they did.
May be they were just outside the wire,
Hanging languidly.
Laden with triumph, oozing with nectar
Ready to bestow some kind of bliss
Upon the suspecting lips of an inmate-
With one ’n’, not two.
Ensconced, buried, held- hellbent
Behind the juicy wire
Waiting with barbed hostility
To toast the next muselmann
Or fear ridden UPS driver
Or her forties equivalent.
You can be my salesperson,
My cashier. My sheer belly dancer.
Tonight. Isabell. Are-a-bell.
What the hell. Who can tell.
Just taste the rust, and maple syrup
On the tip of this Bohemian-
Manufactured bayonet.
The stealth formation of
Stealth formations. Ready to right
The wrong of yesteryear.
Yah Yah Yah
Up the ladder with the jews.
Down the well, and into the loft.
Who cares? God Almighty,
Who cares anymore?
Your pen will run dry.
Your pencil will break,
But you can still awake.
Joe-you can still awake.
Just don’t make contact
With the aquifer of grief
Anytime soon.
Not too soon,
Please.
Text
REMOVE
Lilacs just outside my door.
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MAY 29, 2020
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Editing ‘"The Lilacs Were Starting to Bloom" by Johny Widell, Jackie Joy, Nelly W., and Peter Fried’