Kaleidoscope by June Stepansky - HTML preview

 IN PRAISE OF LILACS

 We had no flowers blooming

on our block when I was six:

just one small plot of fenced

and well-defended grass,

and wild and rambling sunflowers

in the empty field behind the house.

But on the way to school

along untended walls,

as if by chance,

some lilacs grew.

My life was filled with jump ropes,

grown-ups, cats, playmates, marbles.

Then on the way to school one day

I found the fragrance, and the color,

and the magic of lilacs,

and my world enlarged

and changed.