“I cut down my lilac today,”
she said as she glanced at his face.
He didn’t respond or betray
a change she could easily trace.
The lilac had been where they’d stood
and spoken of love that would last,
but now she felt misunderstood
and passion was left in the past.
She said, “If you prune them they grow
much stronger than ever before,
but all the dead branches must go;
you cut them away to the core.
Forget all the words that we said,
that stabbed like the wounding of knives.
Let’s trim away all that is dead,
reshaping the path of our lives.”
He still did not speak but he took
her hand as the walked down the drive.
She knew by his grasp and his look,
that what they both had would survive.