Lilacs

In the waning days of NaPoWriMo, I got sick. I kept writing, but on the last day, my doctor said, enough, and put me in the hospital. So NaPoWriMo ended, for me, on April 29 instead of April 30. But I think I fulfilled the spirit of the mission, and I will return to my 29 poems in the days ahead and tinker with some of them. I was in the hospital two nights -- long enough, this time of year, for leaves and blossoms and yards to change. And long enough to weep when I returned to leaves and blossoms and yards. Our lilacs are blooming, and they scent the neighborhood with something that for me will forever be associated with hope and excitement. It's graduation time, and my head returns to those spring days when I was 21 and felt like I had so much poetry ahead of me. I still feel that way, especially when I smell lilacs.