White Lilacs, by Barbara Crooker

White Lilacs in a Glass Vase, by Edouard Manet (France) 1882.

White Lilacs

"In the last year of his life, wretchedly shortened through illness,
Manet painted several of these vases of simple flowers."
Sister Wendy, The Book of Meditations

When the world
was reduced to a black flag
of pain, what else could he do
but paint flowers, white
lilacs in a crystal vase,
prismatic in the May sunlight,
their heavy perfume
filling the room?

And what can I do
when my autistic son
talks nonsense,
flicks and stims?
I want to go out 
and swim in this river
of drenching scent,
so thick you could lick it
from the air.  I’d like to shrink
to the size of a raindrop,
make my home on this branch
of white clusters, let the ether
of their odor anesthetize the evening,
a field of blank white snow.

​Barbara Crooker

This poem first appeared in Barbara Crooker's book, Radiance (Word Press, 2005.)

Barbara Crooker is the author of many books of poetry; The Book of Kells is the most recent. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Bedford Introduction to Literature, Commonwealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, The Poetry of Presence and Nasty Women: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse.  www.barbaracrooker.com