Lilac season: A delightful few weeks of garden splendor
Evanston RoundTable, May 24, 2023 Bitter cold winters seem to be shrinking, getting warmer and less burdened with snow, dreary as ever but a pale reflection of the fierce winters of half a century ago, which was the subject of my last column. This year’s usually splendid spring season seems to have shrunk too, a few nice days mixed in with weeks of rain, gray skies and cool temps, threatening to bleed directly from drab winter to a blazing Chicago summer without so much as a proper how de do. Then there is lilac season. It lasts just a few weeks – but how the lilacs sanctify and endow this time of year with their sublime beauty and rich aroma! No surprise that lilacs have a revered place in literature. Perhaps the best known is Walt Whitman’s poem When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d that mourns the assassination of Lincoln (“O powerful western fallen star”), which took place during lilac season 1865. Whitman wrote: “In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d palings, Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With … Continue reading →