Perhaps Even the Lilac

"Perhaps even an apple can feel pity;
perhaps the lilac wants to go on living . . . " *
~ Linda Pastan ~

"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you . . .
I could walk through my garden forever."
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~

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* I have posted this beautiful poem before,
but here it is again:

Shadows

Each night this house sinks into the shadows
under its weight of love and fear and pity.
Each morning it floats up again so lightly
it seems attached to sky instead of earth,
a place where we will always go on living
and there will be no dead to leave behind.

But when we think of whom we've left behind
already in the ever-hungry shadows,
even in the morning hum of living
we pause a minute and are filled with pity
for the lovely children of earth
who run up and down the stairs so lightly

and who weave their careless songs so lightly
through the hedges which they play behind
that the fruits and flowers of the earth
rise up on their stems above the shadows.
Perhaps even an apple can feel pity;
perhaps the lilac wants to go on living.

In this house where we have all been living
we bind the family together lightly
with knots made equally of love and pity
and the knowledge that we'll leave behind
only partial memories, scraps of shadows,
trinkets of our years upon the earth. . . .

Always save your pity for the living
who walk the eggshell crust of earth so lightly,
in front of them, behind them, only shadows.

~ Linda Pastan (b 1932)

Ellie in the Garden