By Mike Madison

Listening to Lilac

There is a swale on my place where cold air collects, and where lilac bushes grow happily. In April I take cut flowering branches of lilac to the farmers’ market.

I unload my van at the market, setting out on the ground my buckets of lilac, buckets of irises, buckets of ranunculus, some late tulips, a few late anemones yet. By sunrise the early customers are striding through the market. Here comes one now, fiftyish, gray pixie haircut, glasses, basket under the arm, purposeful stride. As she passes my stand, she looks over, then stops. "Lilacs!" It is at once a question, an answer, an exclamation. She approaches my stand, picks up a bunch of lilac, holds it to her face, closes her eyes, inhales deeply, holds her breath for a count of three, exhales, and then begins to talk.

"The spring I was seven years old, my mother was in the hospital. I went to live with my grandmother on her farm in Illinois. Outside the back door of the house was an enormous lilac bush, with a hollow space under it like a cave. My cousin and I spent hours sitting under that bush, talking and catching bees."

“Were you ever stung?”

“No.”

“Those must have been gentle bees, or maybe you were gentle children. Would you like a bunch of lilac? They’re four dollars.”

“Do they last?”

“Not too well. They’re undependable. Maybe three days. Cut the stems into hot water when you get them home.”

“Yes, I’ll take a bunch.”

The reaction to lilacs is so stereotypical that a sociologist looking over my shoulder would have it fully described in less than an hour. The glance; the recognition; eyebrows raised, posture frozen; the exclamation; the approach; the scooping up of a bunch and holding it to the face; the deep inhale, eyes closed; the holding of breath for the count of three; the exhale; and then the monologue. Memories, of decades past and places far off, spoken in a tone almost confessional, the bustle of the marketplace overpowered by the recollection of some other lilac-laden time.

Rumpled academic type, tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, long curls of gray hair stylishly hanging over his collar. “Lilacs!” Eyebrows raised dramatically. Picks up a bunch. Deep inhale, eyes closed, count of three. Drops them back into the bucket. “When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d…” he begins, and makes an expansive gesture to encompass the row of etceteras needed to finish the quote. I help him out. “And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.” This is the main variant of the monologues of reminiscence — the first line of Whitman’s poem. I hear it a dozen times in the course of the morning. It is a rare bird who gets past the first line, however. The memorizing and reciting of poetry is not what it was a hundred years ago.

Chinese lady, about seventy, wheeling a bicycle through the market. “Lilacs!” She parks her bike awkwardly in the middle of the crowd, walks to my stand, picks up a bunch of lilac, inhales, eyes closed, count of three, exhales. “During the war it was not safe to be in Shanghai. My parents sent me to boarding school in England. We wore uniforms — a blazer and necktie. I had such a hard time with the necktie, it would make me cry; sometimes the front part was too long, sometimes it was too short. Life was not easy.” As an afterthought she adds, “During the war.”

Paunchy businessman, gray hair, bald spot, reading glasses in his shirt pocket attached to a cord around his neck. “Are these lilacs?!” The deep inhale, the eyes closed, count of three, exhale, eyes still closed. “Wellesley, Massachusetts, May of Ô57, Theresa. Sweet Theresa of the short, short skirts.” He inhales greedily.

“She sounds delightful. Would you like to buy a bunch? They’re four bucks.”

“Yes, yes, good idea.” He hums happily while I wrap his flowers in newspaper.

An old lady, eighty-five at least, stepping carefully through the market, hair white, dark green beret askew, transfixed by a silver pin, green overcoat, eyes of Ming dynasty blue-and-white porcelain. “Lilacs!” She picks up a bunch of lilac, holds it to her face, inhales, eyes closed. Molecules of lilac scent tumble upward in the air stream, alight in her nasal passages, find the chemoreceptors on nerve endings into which they fit like a key into a lock. Antique neural circuits hum to life. I wait expectantly.

“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, and the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, and thought of him I love…” By the time she begins the third stanza in her quavering voice, eyes closed, clutching her stem of lilac like a martyr her crucifix, I realize that she knows it all, the whole poem, and will recite it all. The clatter and swirl of the market-place fall away. We are enclosed in an intimate bubble, transcending the petty linearity of time, together, just the four of us: the dusty farmer with his buckets of flowers; the porcelain-eyed narrator with her stem of lilac; the mournful, whiskery Whitman; and the assassinated Lincoln, supine in his coffin.