After the Lilac

             …begin with lilacs
As they are so gentle and their scent
Is unforgettable-clipped

Sheaves from the creep of steep vines,
Edged in for eyelashes deep-
Yet within the descent of red-violet an implied disquiet:

A revolt against the nobility of rich, deep lilac.
No organ or thought will be noble-
Working from the ileum like an historian

Until four o'clock each morning:
With no birth, rummaging the portal
To remember something, anything, a common thing…

The heart first, assembled together
Parts of stars and quasars: strangers who
Instantly click in unique clockwork-

Next, gathered mountain sheep to sleep
In the chambers and a shepherd to keep watch
Through each beat and bleat-

For the mind, a blithe apple tree seed:
Planted-its roots spread to snows unblemished.
The branches touch sunlight,

Not the after-life, you might rightly think,
Not even the next life, just sunlight-
The bones milled themselves

From sky stones, mined and cut blunt-
They glitter and tick toward each eternity.
But the nerves are tricky…

Captured are blind, elegant spiders
Set to spin predictable synapse threads-
Soon let loose and wild,

They sculpt hovering dreamscapes,
One-of-a-kind webs resonant in presence and perception.
The blood, not typical in composition: no hypnotic

Swill of vino or avalanche of angry magma.
The blood flows as thunder, or more so the unspoken rumble
Before the breaking sound: in such a storm

Perhaps we will last against
The fabric of what is infinitely asked:
- to envision

Hushed black, majestic like unraveling space-time
Or elegant white, light as sand etching
Its ether against the whisper of lyric waters.

Which history to emerge is simply
The angle of looking-
From certain ascertained imaginations, it will still be invisible.

The geometry congeals upon exhale, a dim
Phantom shifts by shadows.
The broken mirror bevels its looks: shard innards

Tiled for eyes, thousands into two spheres
Whose prim facets reflect every
Palpable crime and romance-the iris tangent

Casts back the last casualty entwined with fireflies
And their slow, fine glow.
A vine survives: entangled as a dark brook

Tumbling through certain natural nooks
To my spirit: I promised it when I finished.
So linger, after the forest's shimmer

Or enter a tender wave crest in moonlight.
Listen to a wolf howl its native lament,
Witness a child brighten at the sky's first star alive-

Wait for the lilac to expel its scent,
Then think of the spirit
And forget who I am-

Holly R. Appling lives in Canada. Her writing has appeared or will be forthcoming in print and online publications in Canada and the United States.

Find more by Holly R. Appling in the Author Index.

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