My lilac bush is in bloom. It looks like this maybe ten days out of 365. Fragrant too. I always wonder when it's going to happen, so this year I'm setting down a marker: began about 18 May, was near peak on the 23rd, and will probably be over and done before May is out. I forgot to mark National Poetry Month in any way—it's April, most likely because The Canterbury Tales commence "Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote"—so here is Robert Frost on this bittersweet topic:
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
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