Dr. Lant passed away April 16, 2023
“All sparkling with dew”… Spring and its flowers return to Cambridge, 2016
Dedication. For Victoria Burgess Lauing, my grandmother.
She taught me so long ago that one cannot reap without constant sewing,
in a garden, or in life itself. Merely to plant is never enough… I learned this
from her.
Introduction
You might know I had a terrible fall last year, and ended up on the hardwood
floor of my sleeping chamber, eight hours in a coma. I have never before
nor since felt myself so close to death as I did that sad evening in the
darkness, which left me shaken and hardly able to walk, sometimes not walk
at all. It was the most sobering period of my life, without question.
As a result of my caution and the possibility of another crippling fall, I
retreated from so many of my favorite haunts and focused on the written
word, which I more easily control, for I am the master of the lyric voice, and I
never needed it so much, after I lay sprawled, concussed, isolated, and in
despair.
One day, a few months ago, I finally decided to test my abilities by reverting
in this one particular instance to my usual habits and dispositions. I seized
my cane, took the elevator to the ground floor, and resolved I would walk to
the Sheraton Commander Hotel for breakfast, as I so usually used to do at
7 am.
Now the Commander is only a few short blocks from my residence, and I
so often enjoyed noting the progress of the plants, while enjoying the plethora
of various weathers, a particular joy and consternation in New England. Yes,
I loved to check the progress of the fast emerging flowers along my way,
progress I never failed to note. It was always good to see them, and the
various trees, too, along my way. It made me glad to feel so young and
agile, (at least in mind), and so conscious of the beauty all around me.
This day, however, was not an easy ambulation. No, indeed. I had to stop at
every step and place my foot just so, so I would not fall; I moved up no longer
like a young man, but an old one, and this, too, appalled me. Concrete step
upon concrete step, then pause, to ascertain my progress, my hands secure
on the guardrail, my feet awkwardly arranged on the steps. I moved slowly,
deliberately, unsure yet certain I must do this, or never walk again.
I walked a half a block or so, and then I faltered, saying “Do not overdo
what you mean to do, for you have been so immobile for so long now, and
must consider every step you take, and realize what another fall might do.”
I paused outside my residence, trying to convince myself that I could not
proceed, that I was not ready to proceed, that I dare not proceed, for fear of
all that could transpire. Then there it was, nestled against the brick pavement,
a dandelion, its bright yellow arresting my attention, the first I had seen this
year.
It spoke to me from its perfect beauty, disdained by so many, but not by me.
It said, “Your Excellency,” for that is my proper style, “You can do this, you
must do this. You may shut yourself up in opulence and luxury, but one
breath of cool fresh air is worth a king’s ransom to you now.”
I faltered just a bit, and then, in the most courageous thing I have ever done,
I took one step towards my destination, and resolved that come what may I
would walk out this day, and exchange greetings with the world, which had
missed me, as I had missed it.
I walked into the Sheraton Commander and headed for my usual table,
each step aided by the staff: Jeffrey, the maitre d’, Adriana, my solicitous
waitress, and all the other staff greeting me with abrazos and welcoming
smiles.
So kindly, so helpful were they that a gentleman eating his breakfast at a
table next to mine turned to me and said, “Wow, you must be an important
person!” And so I was, for I had shown myself and the world what I might
still do with the help of a dandelion, which winked at me as I ambled home,
and said, “Godspeed, Your Excellency, now you know what you can do. That
is a very good thing to know.” This is the power of flowers, and I had known it
all my life.
There are, of course, flowers for every occasion, and no occasion is
complete without them, from those that festoon the marriage altar, to the
ones that follow the coffin to the grave, a last handful of color and life for the
now departed loved one. Yes, flowers must be our constant companions,
for they soothe us so.
However, the flowers of springtime in New England are the happiest and
most welcome flowers of all.
They confirm, you see, the bitter winter with its arctic winds, and its blizzards
that stab you on their way are gone, gone, all aspects of the frigid and
disconsolate past, gone. Now, is our patience, our tenacious patience,
rewarded by a beauty that asks for nothing more than cheerful recognition
and acknowledgement. This book, in three chapters, celebrates some of
this needed beauty, thereby lightening your burden.
“Dandelion will make you wise”
I begin this book with what the more fastidious of you will disdain, namely,
the dandelion. I was brought up on the prairies of Illinois to believe that
the dandelion was an irritant, not a joy to behold. But that was wrong, for
here is the first bit of color open to us, the joyous yellow of the dandelion.
Thus, when I discovered the poetry of the Rolling Stones celebrating this
traduced weed, this widely regarded menace, I resolved to proclaim its
virtues to all corners of the world, and that is exactly what I am doing. Read
Chapter 1 with an open mind, and listen to the dandelion song written by
the Rolling Stones, and played to perfection by the London Symphony
Orchestra. Left to its own devices, the dandelion moves in high places,
indeed.
I suspect your mind will be changed when you learn what the dandelion
may do for you when we call it to our service, or when we see it along the
highways and byways, as we most assuredly do, for it is everywhere, and
gladly so.
“It isn’t raining rain you know, it’s raining violets”
Throughout history, violets have been present at some of the most
celebrated events, with some of the most celebrated people. Their color, for
instance, is reserved for emperors, and stylish ladies became more stylish
still when they wear a clutch of violets at their throat, Parma violets, the
grandest violets of all. Oh, yes, violets have been in the right place at the
right time for centuries, but my interest is particularly personal, parochial.
When my father purchased the property at 4906 Woodward Avenue, on
which he intended to build with his own hands our first home, he was at first
perplexed by what he should do about a property entirely covered with
violets in all their most vibrant shades which nature may reveal or memory
resurrect.
I had never seen before nor have I seen since a picture so radiant, so
uplifting, so confident in its multiplicity of purples. I have only to see a single
violet now, over a half century and more later, to be instantly taken back to
what must have been God’s own garden, so perfect in every way, its doom
therefore certain.
Of course, they were ploughed under to clear the ground for the construction.
I said nothing about a deed which everyone else construed as improving,
but which I saw as wanton. I could understand the need for progress, but
whenever I see beauty destroyed or disrupted, I am distressed and sad at
heart.
I suspect there is a pagan in me somewhere, for even now I should not
disdain to wear a diadem of violets and run naked through its fields of
pleasure and delight, if only a kindred spirit would invite me. I may hobble
on withered and imperfect limbs, but a violet, a single violet, makes
my spirits soar. This is surely God’s will and soothing gift.
“Green grow the lilacs”
Every flower has its adamant proponents, but no flower has as many as the
lilac. The lilac is not a plant, it is seductive poetry. Every educated person
knows the line from Whitman, “When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d”
(1865).
One is enfeebled by the cloying scent and feels the terrible pain that Whitman
and his mother felt passing newspapers back and forth, saying not a word,
totally consumed by Abraham Lincoln, who they had loved, as all people of
good will must.
One loves that craggy face, his deep sunk ethereal eyes, looking beyond,
every furrow of his ill favored face. There is grave integrity in that face,
pain, and melancholy, and the lilac growing in the dooryard brings solace
to him, and to those who could not help loving him. The promise of return
year after year gives one hope, hope enough to carry on.
Last year, when I was en route to an appointment that must have been
sufficiently important to get me out of my perfectly appointed abode, I had
the driver stop the car when I saw a particularly promising lilac grove.
The blossoms were wet from the morning dew, and they were lovely,
excruciatingly painful, as every scent of lilac is, an assault on your memory.
Lilac forces you to remember, forces you to stop whatever you’re doing,
forces you to think about things you don’t want to think about, perhaps then,
perhaps ever.
You think about people you once loved and lost, you think about people
who hurt you, but you still love. You think about the people you have
treasured and the people you have hurt, while the lilac stands silently by,
urging you on to self revelation and pain, for it both incites and soothes.
Lilac beauty is so intense it’s cruel. Its scent so overwhelming it’s poison. Its
colors so formidable they are pernicious. Lilac is no mere flower, it is an
unpredictable enchantress, as you will see in Chapter 3.
But I am not quite finished yet with this introduction. I want to tell you about my
grandmother, and how she carefully planted groves of lilac that made the
house and its gardens seem a cloister of peace and clemency.
Checking “Google Earth” just the other day, I saw the house, the once great
groves, and every flower gone. The house now looks desolate, dead, a place of
restless ghosts, no longer of artistry, color, comfortable leaf, and joy. Well might
I mourn the passing of my grandmother into eternity, for she and the lilacs
were allies, and now their every work is gone.
Once, in the lavish garden of a Persian aristocrat whom I was being
entertained by before the fall of the Shah, I saw a motto he placed to best
advantage, so that all of his lucky visitors might see it, “God is closest in a
garden”.
I felt that, before the revolution swept away so many good people, and I felt it
when being young, pocket empty, I would unashamedly pluck a perfect
sprig of lilac from any bush, handing it to the love of my life, whoever that love
might be just then. To give a sprig of lilac in this way did not necessarily mean
that I had selected, but rather that the person I was giving it to was worthy of my
selection. Lilac is brash and untrammeled. It teaches you much about yourself.
Lilac makes one audacious and so often unwise, but one cannot help oneself.
This is not a plant, this is not a mere whorl of flowers, this is destiny. However,
the lilac never tells you all it could. You love, but resent. Thus, as the man
driving the car tooted the horn again and again, I thought I would rather skip a
thousand appointments, than miss the chance to caress a single bough of the
lilac I love.
It is at last time to delve deeper into the lives and personalities of the three flowers
I have chosen for this volume. In another volume, I shall take up the matter of
three other quite distinct flowers, all notable, all stunning in their remarkable
ways. The daffodil, the tulip, and the iris. But that is not for today. Just to let you
know that as my word garden grows, as I learn more about these companions
who have graced my life for so long, and for so many of you, I shall share
with you as I always have been willing to do, if the flowers permit.
Musical note
Here are the songs I have selected to accompany my conversations with the
flowers. You can find them in any search engine. For the dandelion, the
song of that name by the Rolling Stones, recorded by the London Symphony
Orchestra in 1994. It is as lovely a piece on flowers as you will ever hear,
though the world will still call it a weed.
For Chapter 2, “April Showers” by Al Jolson from the 1921 Broadway show
“Bombo”. And I believe him, for “It isn’t raining rain you know, it’s raining violets.”
For Chapter 3, “Green Grow the Lilacs”. This is based on an old English song
of the 17th century or even before, called “Green Grows the Laurel”.
When I learned that the settlers of the Oklahoma Territory, including some
of my relatives, gave up some of their precious Conestoga wagon space for
something they deemed as important as coffee or tea or sugar or flour;
that is to say, lilac, I was not surprised.
They knew that their soul needed more than condiments; it needed beauty,
no matter how fleeting; hope, no matter how meager, and the cloying scent that
reminded them of where they came from, and accompanied them to wherever
they were going.
For this journey, I have selected the version by Tex Ritter (1957).
“Green grow the lilacs, Your favorite Flow’r.
So sweetly perfuming a sad parting hour.
Oh send me a message that you love me too”
With lilacs, you can never tell what that message might say.
Afterword. An Encomium for Lewis Carroll.
I remember how startled I was to read in some learned tome that “Alice in
Wonderland” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass” were perhaps two of
the most influential books in the history of the world, with the exception of the
“Holy Bible” of course.
I didn’t believe it then, it seemed a radical compliment, an overly enthusiastic
declaration, but now, I’m not so sure.
Lewis Carroll (born Charles Dodgson 1832-1898) chose to look at an animal
or a plant or an insect and give them what I now know they have, a voice, a
position, a point of view. This has had enormous influence on the world,
bringing us amongst so many things, Mickey Mouse, Bambi, Maximiliano
von Rabbit, and Garfield the Cat (one of my personal favorites). These
characters speak up for themselves, and tell us where to get off.
For centuries, these animals and plants had no characters, and were treated
with scant respect, if any. Animals and plants were cast down, killed,
butchered, ignored, and treated with contumely. Many people, in our
enlightened times, still treat them so.
However, it is important to know and understand that each of God’s creatures,
God’s plants, are in fact, each created by God. Thus, all God’s animal and
vegetable creatures have a right to their point of view, to be heard, to be
listened to, and perhaps to influence and change the world.
I have long ago come to the conclusion that each manifestation of God’s
creativeness needs man’s maintenance and protection, but they so often do
not get it in any way, shape, or form. This is a scandal, for we are hardly more
advanced on this subject than the 12th century, or so.
This book is not just about flowers, it is about rights. It is about ensuring that
God does not create merely for the people wantonly to destroy. And in this
connection, I think of my grandmother, to whom I have dedicated this book. In
short, she helped me cultivate my “eye” that I might see the importance of what
we tended and maintained, and did not just randomly kill and disdain.
She was not, however, ahead of her time, rather she was in tune with the
rhythms of the Earth, as we all should be. However, today, like so many
millions of others, I live in an urban megalopolis, where it is literally possible
to go from day to day and not even see Nature or Nature’s works at all. This
is wrong.
At some point, if this terrible division between the workings of Earth and the
works of man is not solved by all of us, we shall all of us be afflicted, and
all the works of man returned to Nature. On this subject, I regret to report, I am
not optimistic.
Chapter 1
On dandelions. Their splendor in the grass.
Author’s program note. I had been up all night working on an article on global warming. The subject, serious, is draining, demanding, necessarily thought provoking, disturbing. As the sun began to rise, showing its intentions by the first light of a brand-new day, I wrote the last word… and went immediately into the Cambridge Common for air, for light, to be freed from the sobering realities of my midnight researches.
At this early hour, where the vestiges of night still prevailed, as if unwilling to leave, there was no one present… and this distressed me, for I was in need of a smile, a word or two of greeting, and (were I fortunate) a friend. For my night’s work had been long and distressful, spent considering the vulnerabilities of Earth and the growing likelihood that our species, having had our way with this planet, was unwilling, perhaps unable, to do what is necessary to save our only, our collective home. Yes, I needed a friend… and solace.
Then there it was… a sight I had seen for every one of my 65 years… and which was there for me now in the full vibrancy of its joyous yellow. The dandelion. And as if it knew my need, it took me back at once to the springtime of my life when my thoughts were not cosmic or burdensome… but soaring, unfettered, generous, happy. All this one single dandelion, radiant in the mud, delivered to me, glad to be of service. And I smiled, gloom lightened by the dandelion’s undoubted splendor in the grass, gracious gift to me so many times before; gracious gift to me again now bidding me face the world and its daunting troubles with more cheer… and even hope…
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, more sensitive than they might like to show, knew the friendship and power of the dandelion. In 1967 their Rolling Stones sang this:
“Dandelion don’t tell no lies Dandelion will make you wise Tell me if she laughs or cries Blow away dandelion.”
You’ll find this song in any search engine. Go now and listen carefully, to both the version by the Rolling Stones and the unexpected beauty of the one played by the London Symphony Orchestra. And understand this: a plant that can inspire such sentiments can surely be no weed but must be instead a thing of joy and beneficence.
Facts about the dandelion.
Taraxacum is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. They are native to Eurasia and North Africa, and two species, T. officinale and T. erythrospermum are found as weeds worldwide.
The common name dandelion comes from the French, dent-de-lion, meaning lion’s tooth. Like other members of the Asteraceae family, they have very small flowers collected together into a composite flower head. Each single flower is called a floret. Many Taraxacum species produce seeds asexually by apomixis, where the seeds are produced without pollination, resulting in offspring that are genetically identical to the parent plant.
These are the facts and as such are important… but no where near as important as what follows, for the dandelion, remembering me from a lifetime of visits with its ancestors, was candid about its situation and how little the people passing by know of it… and its myriad services to our kind. I listened in the pristine dawn to what he told me… for he needed to tell and I needed to hear…
Poets and dandelions.
Most of the many poets who have written about dandelions are women…. and whilst they undoubtedly mean well… they have grossly misunderstand the dandelion. And here he offered one cogent example after another, starting with these words from Helen Barron Bostwick’s no doubt unintentionally condescending poem “Little dandelion”, irritating the dandelion right from its title and irritating it throughout with its ill-considered aggravating descriptions: “Bright little Dandelion… Wise little Dandelion… True little dandelion” and many similar misunderstandings and provocations.
Dandelions, he told me, are resolute, bold, tenacious, determined pathfinders. How else had they covered the known world in an imperium greater than all the captains general of human history combined?
But there was more, much more to come as the eloquent dandelion warmed to his subject…
In her poem “To a Dandelion” Helen Gray Cone wrote of the “Humble Dandelion” while an equally uncomprehending Hilda Conkling said “Little soldier with the golden helmet.” As he rattled off the evidence so long accumulated and earnestly considered, his dew touched leaves quivered, for this dandelion spoke for all his aggrieved species. But here I, who had needed comfort just a moment ago, was able to give it, the truest measure of empathy and satisfaction.
I did not merely regard but fully perceived this agitated friend. So I whispered these words, to be carried and delivered by the lightest of breezes… “There is more knowledge of you than you may know, more reasons to be of the good cheer you have shared with me than you may have ever known or considered.” And here I recited the always insightful and soothing words of a man who had, like me, truly perceived more in the dandelion than their littleness… This man was the Great Republic’s great poet Walt Whitman. These were his simple, evocative words from his masterpiece “Leaves of Grass” (1855):
“Simple and fresh and fair from winter’s close emerging/ As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been/ Forth from its sunny nook of shelter’d grass — innocent, golden, calm as the dawn/ the spring’s first dandelion shows its trustful face.”
“I remember… yes, I remember.” And tears of remembrance mixed with the dew.. for these generous sentiments, celestial, obliterated an ocean of misstatements and misunderstandings, a single word of generosity and genius providing an infinity of bliss.
And so we understood each other, this bright yellow dandelion accoutered in radiance and I. We had both found a friend and been refreshed, each giving the other what he most needed then, all that was necessary to trek our laborious path. Thus we parted, happy with our chance encounter, our lives enhanced, our burden bearable again:
“Little girls and boys come out to play/ Bring your dandelions to blow away/ Dandelion don’t tell no lies/ Dandelion will make you wise.” And no one knows it better than I…
Chapter 2
Author’s note. Before you read this article, give yourself the right musical accompaniment, “April Showers” sung by Al Jolson. Jolson made many recordings of this famous song. The music was written by Louis Silvers, the lyrics by B. G. De Sylva; it was first sung by Jolson in the 1921 Broadway musical “Bombo”.
A quick search of any search engine should yield this pip of a song with the inimitable Jolson touch that soon made him a household name. “April Showers” spurred him on his way; it will help us on ours, too.
Acres of violets… nestled amongst the trees… quiet… serene… so abundant, unforgettable by sunlight… irresistible by moonlight… attired in transient glory for the midnight visit of Titania and all her court… you fell asleep too early to see…
These are the violets of my youth… and I cannot see a single blossom without being seized by the memory of their beauty. That is why, when the spring comes and the May violets with it, I prefer to walk alone through Cambridge streets, so that when I find the patches of violets I know so well, I can allow myself the bittersweet sensation of remembrance.
A companion on these walks, so desirable so often, is de trop in violet season. Such a one would try to be congenial, amiable, a real friend. But that is not what you want when the violets come…. you want what only you can recall… the memory of youth, beauty, of endless time for squandering and of the springtime of your life, when your life was just for living, and all life’s miseries and injunctions were yet to come, not present realities. The violets saw it all and smiled… for no one knew better than they how brief that season was. But they didn’t share that insight with you… they knew it would come soon enough on its own. And so it did, thus closing this time in all but memory. Each violet seen is a bridgeway to that memory… and precious so.
The violets of Woodward Avenue.
Winters in the heartland of America which is Illinois, are hard, interminable, testing the fortitude of every living thing, all longing for release and the clemency of spring. By February you are desperate for relief… and while the snow may stop for an instant, the mud does not. It is everywhere, not least in the places you are sternly admonished never to track it. But the mud is more insistent upon going in with you, than you are in heeding the insistent admonition.
Out of this rich mud, the mud that feeds America and the world, come the violets in rampancy and profusion. Their job is to obliterate the despondent memories of winter… and create the moment when you, turning a corner, see them in all their glory, catching your breath and (without even knowing) breathing a paean of pure thanks for this flicker of time, forever magnificent; now ineffably part of your soul.
Some facts about violets.
Viola is a genus of flowering plants in the violet family Violaceae, with around 400-500 species distributed around the world. Most species are found in the temperate Northern Hemisphere; however, viola species (commonly called violets, pansies, or heartsease) are also found in widely divergent areas such as Hawaii, Australasia, and the Andes in South America.
Flower colors vary in the genus, ranging from violet, as their common name suggests, through various shades of blue, yellow, white, and cream, whilst some types are bicolored, often blue and yellow. Many cultivars and hybrids have been bred in a greater spectrum of colors. Flowering is often profuse, and may last for much of the spring and summer.
Edible violets.
Violets are not only wonderful to look at; they titillate the palate in surprising ways. Violets have a delicate, sweet and sometimes peppery flavor. Before including them in your next salad, however, reaping the advantages of their abundant antioxidants, have a care. Violets are good for you; some flowers that resemble violets are not. These include spring larkspur and monkshood, which are in fact poisonous. This suggests the plot for a murder mystery suitable for “Masterpiece Theatre”. Miss Honeycroft, though no longer young, was appreciated by hostesses for her wit and lively humor of a literary kind; her well-tended violets were much admired… it came as a great shock to the community when her body was found amongst them, jarring in bright red riding boots and nothing more… Kinky. Who would water the violets now?
Special warning: Be extra careful not to add African violets to that salad, even just a few. African violets, beloved of grandmothers worldwide (including mine) are so named because of their resemblance to violets, although they are not true violets and are absolutely not edible; neither are the rhizome or roots of any violets. They are poisonous to humans.
More ways to eat violets.
Violets may be sauteed like spinach and added to stir-fry vegetables. Wild violets also have a somewhat viscous texture when cooked which is used in traditional cooking as a thickener for soups and stews. But while I am sure you like a good stew so prepared… I am surer you crave the sweeter uses of violets….
Violets are a symbol of everlasting love and the enduring passion which their purple color suggests. Remember, this color, in Ancient Rome and Byzantium, was reserved for emperors… the highest placed mortals on earth. Now swept away, you can enjoy some of their rarefied delights.
To make candied violet flowers, pick a large number of flowers and let them dry on a paper towel for a couple of hours. Beat an egg white to a froth, and color it with food coloring, if desired. Using a fine brush, carefully coat each flower with the egg white, then pour fine sugar over each. Blend the sugar in your blender to make it a finer consistency. Lay each flower on wax paper to dry, then use as a decoration for your confections when the flowers are stiff enough to move. This will impress the special one in your life. But you want more than to impress, don’t you? You want to ensnare this person forever and forever passionately. Admit it. Here violets are essential.
Offer your beloved “Parma violets”, a select British tablet confectionery manufactured by the Derbyshire-based company Swizzels Matlow. For maximum effect, offer, too, a glass of Creme Yvette, made from Parma violets, the most luxurious and lush violets of all. Rarer than rare, this liqueur has not been made for decades… giving it will therefore make the desired impression… and ensure the total submission of the one you crave to distraction. Such is the enduring power of the violet, in the wild or distilled.
“So if it’s raining, have no regrets, Because it it isn’t raining rain you know, It’s raining violets…”
Run outside now and seize them… and this moment… before they and it pass away forever, to your certain regret.
Chapter 3
‘Green grow the lilacs, all sparkling with dew.’ Haunting, evocative, elegiac, the lilacs return to Brattle St.., Cambridge, May 7, 2011.
I was out early today. Even before dawn’s first light, I was up and about and soon on my mission… to find the first bunches of lilac, and drink in their unmistakable scent with the pristine dew.
What passersby (not too numerous so early) must have thought to see the flowers held against my face, though gently so as not to crush them, I cannot say. I did not care. The lilacs that I love to excess have returned to Cambridge… and with them every memory of this most evocative of flowers and their flagrant, haunting fragrance.
Beloved of Russian empresses…
One day the great Empress Catherine of all the Russias (1762-1796) went walking in her garden of Tsarskoe Selo and found a branch of lilacs, so perfect she was sure it would be picked to amplify the bouquet of some lovelorn lad to his much desired lady… so she stationed a soldier next to this lovely branch. In 1917, a soldier was still stationed where the plant no longer flowered or even existed. But then Tsar Nicholas II wasn’t surprised… for his wife Alexandra, called “Sunny”, loved lilacs to distraction, too… and created a room in the most palatial of palaces where everything was in a shade of lilac. It became, in due course, the most famous room of the empire…
My grandmother Victoria had this same tendresse for her much loved and coddled lilacs. She craved their scent and their colors, too, in every shade of purple… heliotrope, mauve, violet, lavender, puce, and all the other variations. Even my grandmother’s perfume, Muguet de Bois by Coty (launched 1941) featured lilac… and lily-of-the valley. Proust-like, that scent brings her back… as does my mother’s Chanel. Lilac is like that. It will not be denied and can never be resisted.
And now the lilacs are in rampant bloom along Tory Row on Brattle Street, breathtaking, sensual, glorious. The Loyalists would have remembered them for all the rest of their long lives; the merest hint of their scent would trigger the painful memories that come with unending exile.
A few facts about lilacs.
You may be surprised to learn (I was) that syringa (lilac) is a genus of about 20 to 25 species of flowering woody plants in the olive family (Oleaceae) native to woodland and scrub from southeastern Europe to eastern Asia.
They are deciduous shrubs or small trees, ranging in size from 2 to 10 meters (6 feet 7 inches to 32 feet 10 inches) tall, with stems up to 20 to 30 centimeters (7.9 to 12 inches) in diameter.
The leaves are opposite (occasionally in whorls of three) in arrangement, and their shape is simple and heart-shaped.
The flowers are produced in spring and are bisexual, with fertile stamens and stigma in each flower. The usual flower color is a shade of purple (generally a light purple or lilac), but white, pale yellow and pink, even a dark burgundy color are known. Flowering varies between mid spring to early summer, depending on the species.
The fruit is a dry, brown capsule, splitting in two at maturity to release the two winged seeds that have within them everything that produces the lustrous magnanimity of the lilac and commands your eye and reverence.
The poets irresistible attraction to and understanding of lilacs.
Poets, including many notable poets, saw lilacs and wished, in words, to produce the lyric quality of their scent. The scent, the unforgettable scent, swept them away. It was exuberant, excessive, a warning to the dangers of immersion in a thing so powerful, so rich, so cloying; a thing that draws you away from the little duties and miseries of life and whispers of pleasures you want beyond reason. Too much of this unalloyed richness gives way to madness… and exultation.
Amy Lowell (1874-1925) knew the potency of lilacs. She wrote
“Your great puffs of flowers Are everywhere in this my New England… Lilacs in dooryards Holding quiet conversations with an early moon; Lilacs watching a deserted house Settling sideways into the grass of an old road; Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom….”
And then….
“You are everywhere. You were everywhere.”
Lilacs know their power and seduce you with it, every wind wafting the scent into your brain and memory. They offer you the same terms that a beautiful woman offers the man distracted by her — none at all, just surrender. Lilacs are the sorceress of blooms, enchanting, elusive, sharing their magic for an instant… leaving you longing for what you fear you will never have again.
The flower of elegy, mourning, decay, death.
Lilacs are the flower of remembrance. After the fall of Tsar Nicholas II and the entire structure of tsardom, the ex-emperor and his wife Alexandra found themselves prisoners of the new regime, forbidden even to walk in the magnificent park at Tsarskoe Selo. Alexandra looked out upon an ocean of lilac, once hers, now as distant as the moon. Her haunted look, beyond mere dismay, touched the heart of a simple soldier. He gave her a sprig. His officer saw this as “fraternizing with the enemy” and had him shot.
Amy Lowell, too, saw lilac as an accoutrement of death.
“The dead fed you Amid the slant stones of graveyards. Pale ghosts who planted you Came in the nighttime and let their thin hair blow through your clustered stems.”
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) also knew the immemorial association between lilacs and death, and he gave us the simple words that bespoke the greatest tragedy:
“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.”
He picked a sprig of lilac and thought of the passing into eternity of Abraham Lincoln, “Night and day journeys a coffin.” It is unbearably painful for him, only the simple words — and the lilac — with its promise to return — giving solace, for that is within the power of the lilac, too, which Whitman knew and relied on:
“Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes, With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, For you and the coffins all of you O death.”
But this cannot be the last word on lilacs, not this.
Think instead of Lynn Riggs’ 1931 play “Green Grow the Lilacs”, the basis for the libretto of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma,” a musical about real people and their real concerns. They brought lilac seeds with them to beautiful their often difficult lives because they couldn’t bear the thought of life without its beauty, comfort and serenity. And I cannot either.
============================
It was a great honor to work with Dr. Jeffrey Lant during his tenure as CEO of Worldprofit. This
article was given to Daniel Fischer while Dr. Jeffrey Lant was at Worldprofit.
Yours In Success,
Daniel Fischer Dano Enterprises
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