Falling under the spell of this chilly lilac spring, I find myself giddily lost and adrift on the heady perfume and pretty shades of light purple that abound in the garden right now. A softer echo of our opening song, this reprise feels even softer, perhaps a little more seductive than the original post – more fitting with the way this spring is slowly but steadily progressing, adding the smallest of increments to the warming of days. 

I lost myself on a cool damp night, 
Gave myself in that misty night
Was hypnotized by a strange delight
Under a lilac tree…

While the wine no longer moves me, the perfume of the lilac holds me in sway. Entranced by its potent beauty, I swoon beneath the influence of its exquisite fragrance and delicate shading. Embodiment of spring, emblem of hope, and enticer of all who seek beauty in this world, the lilac is muse and temptress – promiser of delights, sage of inspiration. 

Enrapt by the charms of the season, I fall deeper under its enchanting pull every day. As more buds swell and explode – with flower and leaf and root – I’m reminded of the sensual delights that the warmer days will soon bring. Is it terribly wrong to lazily lap up the indulgence of the sun when for so long it’s been absent?

A rebirth of sorts feels in the stirring, and I’m happily powerless of letting it wash over and baptize me anew. A second coming at the tail-end of middle-age, perhaps, and the lilacs have only just begun to tell their perfumed stories…

Cherry blossoms, caught mid-way through their dressing process, have paused in their show, refusing to be coaxed out in such cold, windy weather. Their reluctance is matched by their companion foliage – the leaves also remaining tightly bound, coiled into themselves in the face of such inhospitable iciness. Everything and everyone is hesitant to appear without the promise of the sun – but there is never such a promise, only the hope… a fervid, intense, passionate hope that spring leans closer to summer than winter, even if we are not quite there yet.

Oh joy’s arise
The sun has come again to hold you
Sailing out the doldrums of the whole week
The polyphonic prairies here, it’s all around you
It’s all around you, out here

And if the whole world is crashing down
Fall through space out of mind with me
Where the emptiness we leave behind on warm air rising
Blows all the shadows far away

Once the shadows depart, and the sun lets the sap start running again, a pair of ants will meet in the branches of a cherry tree. Maybe they’ve come from separate worlds, miles apart, finding each other compatible in a sea of millions where no other ant ever stood out. Maybe they’ve been nearby the whole time, simply unaware and unhappily alone without the other. A pair of ants is a wonder – an empire of ants is a metaphor. The human condition longs mostly for connection.

The falling alcohol empire, is here to hold you
Rolling out and haunted ’til it sleeps

Little memories, marching on
Your little feet, working the machine
Will it spin, will it soar
My little dream, working the machine

Soon like a wave that pass will fall
And closing in on you they’re going on

A pair of ants in a world that seems hellbent on stepping on them finds themselves in a precarious position. Two against the masses, two against the world. So many odds stacked against them, so many obstacles standing in their way. Happiness is too often a thing of delicate fragility – take it when you can, before it blows away. Hold tight to each other, see yourselves through the night.

Little memories
Your little feet, working the machine
Will it spin, will it soar
My little dream, working the machine

Soon like a wave that pass will fall
And closing in on you they’re going on

Somewhere in the gauzy shadowed world of Blanche DuBois, this song was sung in her thin, slightly reedy voice. Trapped in the hellish New Orleans cesspool of her only remaining family, she tries valiantly to conjure some bit of beauty in her small surroundings, and in the face of the brutish behavior of others. ‘A Streetcar Named Desire‘ by Tennessee Williams is a haunting work, as is its film adaptation. Humans are cruel to each other, I often realize, yet we still strive to make something of our lot in life, no matter how unbearable it seems to become. That sometimes comes in the form of a paper moon – an apt metaphor for how flimsy human kindness feels when juxtaposed with human brutality. But ahh, the light… the light glows no matter how dark things get – indeed, grows in power the darker the rest of the world falls.

You say it’s only a paper moon
Sailing over a cardboard sea
But it wouldn’t be make believe if you believed in me
Yes, it’s only a canvas sky
Hanging over a muslin tree
But it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me

Without your love it’s a honky-tonk parade
Without your love it’s a melody played in a penny arcade
It’s a Barnum & Bailey world
Just as phony as it can be
But it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me

Spring’s ephemeral delights are like that paper moon too. They aren’t designed to last forever, but while here they enchant and enthrall with a potency that rivals anything that might endure. Moreover, their power is such that they can change you forever, even if they are already gone by the time you realize it.

It’s phony it’s plain to see
How happy I would be
If you believed in me