Lilac

This is the day for solitude. Just spending some time with my beautiful tree, just the idea of it, makes me so happy. True, one cannot own trees, but a substantial part of me lives for that tree. Surely it isn't wrong to claim it as mine, when it has done the same to me. It heals. It nourishes.

Today, it drops down more flowers onto my lap than the stars in the sky to drive away my gloomy aura. The ethereal lilac beauties surround me and comfort me. Lying in heaps on the pale grey ground, they look like little iridescent lights. The fragrance of them is sharp and strong, like a jagged rock against the tumultuous tides. Every bit of me, they know. And I know them too. The soft, velvety texture of the petals, the shape of the five petals, slightly off-balance and not quite symmetrical, yet perfect. Its a bundle on contradictions, just like me. Somehow, that thought soothes me.

I try memorizing the scenery, for I know this will not last. I do not want it to meld with the other memories, to be remembered and yet forgotten like the colours of a long gone sunset.

As much as I tried though, time had its way and eventually eroded away this too, until all I could recall of it was a lilac nothingness.

I wait patiently for I know that fate would bring me back to my tree again. Sure enough, one day the sharp fragrance of the lilac flowers beckons me towards them until I'm embracing my long-lost tree. Here was my safe haven, my unconditional support, the one I could always confide in and the one who I could rely upon, against all odds. Memories invade me, bringing tears of a hundred joys and sorrows to my eyes. Such was the power of the lilac flower.

~VN