Planting Lilacs

Hold the taproot straight in this deep hole.

I will press warm earth against its hairs

and seem as if I kneel to save my soul

(no better way, I think, to say one’s prayers).

This planting is promise in the dust

that we will find great thickets other springs

to shake the stems of, satisfy some lust

for brute omnipotence and pagan things.

(O let them find no cold initialed stones

when they walk here and talk about the past,

remind each other where they dropped our bones—

and what a shame that passion cannot last!

Let them find us under their own skin,

Our scent in the soft places love has been.)