95 Comments

You’re a true professional. I’m feeling a little out of my depth. Don’t remember the last time that occurred. ;)

Expand full comment

Thank Hudson, I enjoy doing it! It’s fun to meet people here who appreciate writing!

Expand full comment

I would fit into that demographic. I just appreciate people who are good at whatever they do. It’s really easy to appreciate folks who excel at a fine art.

I can’t believe how many amazing writers I’ve met in just a few months. So grateful I stumbled into the platform, you and many other fine writers.

Expand full comment

Am I biased because of a great fondness for the gorgeous variety in lilacs? I love scent memory - walking into a room and suddenly getting a whiff of something that sparks a time traveling, intense, memory that lasts to brief a time?

I truly enjoyed this poem. An honor to Lillian’s and life affirming.

Expand full comment

YES. At least for me. Olfactory is THE memory trigger!!!

Expand full comment

Scent is always such a strong memory trigger for me. It's quite crazy how emotions can be so latched to a single scent. Yesterday, I walked past someone in the city who happened to be wearing a perfume someone I knew at uni wore. Even though I haven't seen that person for 20 years, that smell transported me back to university and being there with them.

Expand full comment

Indeed. Well said.

Expand full comment

It worked for Proust as well.

Expand full comment

Thank you 💫

Expand full comment

I love the unbroken flow from the beauty of the more general to the personal, and all in a few short lines. Wonderful!

Expand full comment

Thank you! I’m proud of this one. It just popped out a year or so ago…nice when that happens.

Expand full comment

The cosmos is spinning as it should. If we let it, wonderful things happen. At least for me, when I pick up the stirring stick, things go sideways. Patience, not one of my wheelhouse qualities.

As if you didn’t know? lolol

Expand full comment

Maybe patience isn't necessary, just permission.

Expand full comment

Beautiful celebration of love and the yet speaks of enjoying the transient nature of - well, lilacs, or love . Brief but nevertheless committed to returning…

Expand full comment

You captured my feelings far better than I could have put into words, Patris. That's exactly how I felt when reading this.

Thanks for sharing this one, Brian, and lovely photo to go with it, Hudson.

Expand full comment

Thanks Nathan!

Expand full comment

Well said!

Expand full comment

Because we’re fools or romantics?

Expand full comment

Do they have to be mutually exclusive? ;)

Expand full comment

God no

Expand full comment

She says while looking at me.

😉

Expand full comment

Lovely poem celebrating lilacs and love. My mother’s lilac blossomed like Hudson’s photo. The poem and the photo brought back memories of both. Thank you, Brian & Hudson!

Expand full comment

I love hearing that, thanks Paul!

Expand full comment

Thank you for saying that Paul. I must defer to Brian. He made me look good.

Expand full comment

There’s something sentimental about lilacs to every resident of North America. I think of the women of the settlers. Obviously cooked, cleaned, mothered, doctored, Lord only knows what else. Yet somehow kept a cutting of Grandma‘s lilac alive to plant at the new Homestead.

Expand full comment

We had a lilac by the door for years until she gave up. My husband dug her up and gave me her roots, twirled like licorice whips.

Expand full comment

I love making something cool out of a toss away item to most. Kudos to him!!!

Expand full comment

Kindred

Expand full comment

Brian, what a gorgeous collaboration. 🌱

You plus Hudson plus lilac, plus sun and soil and so much more.

Thank you for giving Lilac her pronoun.❤️

Expand full comment

Thank you. In truth, I simply furnished Brian the shot. It’s all him. Not just wonderful prose, but page design is perfect. The OCD in me appreciates that beyond all measure.

I believe it a safe assumption Mizzou J school would be proud of Brian. Alumni or not. 😉

Expand full comment

Thanks for recognizing the page design! The little things matter 👍

Expand full comment

She would kick your butt if you called it “a little thing” in her presence. . She spends 22 hours a week in the gym as an ACE certified spinning instructor and BodyFlow professor.

Just a heads up.

lololol

I’m positive her editing skills are brilliant also. That’s what she does now on her own. I think she inherited a little generational money. Good for her. She’s Lucidity, editing and layout. Santa Fe, NM.

I think mostly she travels and writes about it. Good gig if you can get it!

Expand full comment

One of my serial monogamy partners had the degree that I mentioned. She did that exact thing as layout editor for both Christie’s Great Estates, latter Stereophile Magazine. If nothing else, I like to think I see what I’m looking at. I know with complete certainty, it was carefully and wonderfully crafted.

Expand full comment

Hudson, there is something about your choices: the light, the angle, the composition. Flowers are easy subjects; they are just so beautiful. But your photograph is more than that. I hope you take the compliment.🌱

Expand full comment

Flattery will get you everywhere……😉

Expand full comment

Most certainly. Being away from the Midwest for 35 years has allowed me to except a compliment with a bit of Grace. ;)

Hi sample use the basic rules of backlight in the framing of the golden ratio. That’s about it. But yeah, plant sex is gorgeous!! lol

Expand full comment

The pronoun happened naturally when I wrote this a year ago. Now, thanks to your writing, I would do it intentionally!

Expand full comment

kinship

Expand full comment

anticipating

via your tender scented words

and petals

the lilac tree

across the road

greening itself

it is I

the awaited one

as my beloved man

returns on Friday

beautiful blossoms

fresh as my soul

bouquet

for our tenth anniversary

Lilac

in the flesh

in this moment

Expand full comment

Brilliant, Ms Deborah! 🙏

Expand full comment

I was immediately struck by

" When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed." Thanks for your poem and the thread provoked.

Expand full comment

Mr. Whitman knew what he was doing!

Expand full comment

I am remiss, Malcolm. Your recent work has been brilliant!! Thank you.

Expand full comment

Nay. Not remiss. Just busy.

Been there.

Be well.

Expand full comment

I sincerely appreciate your graciousness. Still, I should endeavor to do better. I found time to consume it……….

Expand full comment

This is an evocative combination--well done, Brian & Hudson! Such a nostalgic flower for me. We had a tall, purple lilac bush in the backyard of my childhood home. My mom used to cut blossoms, fill vases, and put them all over the house: on the dining room table, in the entry hall, and in little vases on each bedside table. I would drift off to sleep on a cloud of that special, once-a-year scent. 💜

Expand full comment

Sounds about perfect😊

Expand full comment

So kind of you. Appreciate it!!

Expand full comment

Nice collaboration!

Expand full comment

Thanks!

Expand full comment

That's really great. It beautifully captures how powerful scents can be and how they can trigger memories. Nice job... 😎

Expand full comment

Bryan is an exceptionally fine writer.

Expand full comment

Thanks Chris!

Expand full comment

double beauty

Expand full comment

I can smell the lilacs when I read your poem! Thank you!

Expand full comment

Thank you!

Expand full comment

My pleasure! ♥️

Expand full comment

Me2!!!

Expand full comment

This is lovely. The last couplet and what precedes it.

Expand full comment

Thanks!

Expand full comment

Just lovely!!! Thanks for sharing

Expand full comment

My pleasure!

Expand full comment

Anticipation is memories personified.

Expand full comment

I’m not sure about the grammar, it’s late at night but you know what I mean .

Expand full comment

We do! “Not sure about the grammar” is my existence….

Expand full comment

Are we pro Oxford comma or not? Can we have a position on the Oxford comma? Elements of style escape me. As if you hadn’t noticed…….

~ palm to forehead ~

Expand full comment

Ha ha, I should be in bed but I’m watching a subtitled Korean series on Netflix, please forgive them.

Expand full comment

lol. Thanks for reading Stanley!

Expand full comment