An Emotional Attachment To Lilacs Poem by Jenny Kalahar

Lilacs
Their shades of purple described by other flower names:
lavender and wisteria
violet and verbena
as if we think the lilac
has arrived in spring
merely to imitate
that which it cannot be

I describe lilacs using childhood memories:
they are the color of shopping at Sears for a spring jacket
the color of my bicycle, trapped the winter long in our garage
the color that topped the tall, orange glass vase
on my mother's worn, oak sewing table
they are the color of fragrant, open-window nights
awake in my bedroom listening to trains clack and rumble
the color of kites soaring at the edge of the graveyard
of sitting in my tire swing staring up at the rope
where it tied to a dependable tree limb
listening to it creak but never snap
while wishing lilacs would not shrivel and dry so quickly
into the brown, unfair color of memories nearly gone