When *did* last the lilacs in the dooryard bloom?

A note on spring during the longest year

Being born in the spring is funny because you share your annual toasting with all the rest of the babies of practically every other species of both flora and fauna. The poking through of the crocus tells you that it’s nearly time; the big, snowy clusters of cherry blossoms let you know it’s truly your season. And of course, you also share your first and only birth with the much-celebrated rebirth of a man who would, were he to come back today, look around, squint his eyes, and say “on second thought, y’all are on your own. Ring me when you’ve learned to read.”

A spring birthday is all Peeps and new lambs and gawky foals and eyes that feel like they’ve been lovingly dipped in sawdust fondue. It’s open windows and chores because the inside of your house (at least in the northwest) haven’t felt fresh air in months.

But do know what I think is interesting about being born in the spring? It means your fresh turn around the universe is also a reminder to get your ass in GEAR.

Because spring, my chickadees, is not for leisure.

It’s for labor.

And, I think we often forget, it’s for loss.

Often in the middle spring, when I catch the fragrance long before I see the star-shaped blooms, I remember one of the saddest poems about one of the prettiest flowers — and the death of democracy. Which this year feels, well, more poignant, I guess.

When Walt Whitman wrote about the last time he saw the lilacs in bloom, he captured the exceptionally human experience of a smell that triggers a memory. Because the last time he saw those little purple buds, he says, it a bright spring day of deep despair. For the first time, the arrival of the lilacs doesn’t just remind him of warmer days and bluer skies — instead, since last year, they will always now bring with them the acidic pangs of loss. Because this time last year, he was mourning a man and also a future that was snuffed out by twerp who was basically the original incel.

Seriously, if podcasts had existed, JWB would’ve been a Rogan superfan.

In remembering the somber spring day — when the natural glory seemed to mock the human reality — that Lincoln’s coffin was led through town, Whitman is reminding himself and the reader that from now until forever, spring is a reminder of what is born and what has died. And how when Lincoln was shot in the theatre, America’s dreams were filled with lead, as well.

16

Passing the visions, passing the night,

Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’ hands,

Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul,

Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song,

As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night,

Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy,

Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,

As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,

Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,

I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.

I cease from my song for thee,

From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,

O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.

Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,

The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,

And the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul,

With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe,

With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,

Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,

For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,

Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,

There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.

It’s not really safe to assume that anyone knows shit about shit with regard to history these days, so here’s a quick reminder Lincoln was replaced by a Southern Democrat named Andrew Johnson, who was honestly a real shitheel and had little interest in coming up with a sustainable solution for repairing the nation or finishing the work of establishing Black Americans as, you know, fully-realized human people.

Though the plan to assassinate Lincoln didn’t fully undermine emancipation, it sure did derail some of the important pieces of groundwork Lincoln had planned (like not pardoning Confederate war criminals and actually granting newly-freed citizens land and a way to make a living).

All of this unfolded before Whitman’s eyes in the year since the extra-long coffin had paraded its way through the nation. In addition to losing the man that he loved, he was also heartbroken to see the future and the dreams that Lincoln represented shattered.

And now here we are, just about 160 years later, lilacs in bloom once again, and we are flooded with even more fascism than Whitman or Lincoln could have imagined. But I imagine Booth would have absolutely loved it.

Which is why I’ve been reading a lot of other poems lately — poems which are also about spring, but the other part of it. The part where this is the season for starting again.

Like this one, from Claude McKay:

When this poem is taught in schools, it’s usually explained in a pretty saccharine way, like “oh, haven’t you ever just wanted to go outside when it’s sunny out?” Which like yes, Ms. Brenda, no shit. But we’re grown-ass adults.

Reading it as an adult, especially knowing that McKay himself was a socialist and the son of a farmer, I think it’s more appropriate to see view it through a James Baldwin-esque lens; it’s always too nice outside, even when it’s not that nice outside, because we do not dream of labor.

Here’s one more to keep in your pocket this spring:

That one speaks for itself.

Also, if you’re feeling like you can’t even begin to wrap your mind around the absolutely lawlessness happening at the top of the nation’s alleged law-and-order party, I have a book recommendation for you. The Ministry of Special Cases is a novel about the Argentine Dirty War and it’s a tremendous bummer but, if you’re like me and find that fiction can help your brain sort through what things can, have, and might look like, it really is one of the best. But again: Huge bummer.

Now go outside. Breathe deeply until your lungs fill with so much tree pollen that you, yourself, become a tree. This is the season of work — ploughing, planting, punching Nazis, whatever. Pick a flower and prepare. If Whitman could survive that first awful spring, so can you. 🌷

xoxo HBO