Lilac-Lore

As I gaze in the mirror at my five month untouched hair, I see a shock of grey and neglected, uncouth tresses reflected back at me. For some reason a line from ‘I Love these Things’ by F W Harvey comes unbidden to mind:

” And I would bend not break:

Learn Lilac-lore, and as a willow rod

Be beautiful though weak-“

There is something so graceful about the way the natural world ages and decays and replenishes and wears its beauty unquestioned and triumphant. We have so much to learn from it, perhaps especially when it comes to the things we cannot control; like ageing, and how we look, and what happens, unexpectedly, when we are trying to tread a planned path.

This poem has a strong nod to the one quoted above, inspired by the ‘still grace, and beauty of courage’ that Harvey so eloquently ascribed to nature.

Would I bend, and not break,

Like the honeysuckle stirring in the treetop,

Pliable in the breeze, sharing it’s scent

wildly, wind-swept, and yielding to the breath of god,

This gusty April day?

Like the ragged nest in the bower of trees

Swaying with the squall,

Creaking like the oaks, and meshing, furling,

Bending, not breaking.

Obedient to the fortunes of the wind.

If I could learn the lilac-lore,

And bear tenderly the weathering of time;