I saw the twists of lilies of the valley coming up by the diner this morning and remembered the side yard of my paternal grandparent and my father’s aunt and uncle’s house.<\/p>\n
Lilies of the Valley<\/p>\n
By the steps, bound with wooden planks,
\nwhorls of leaves appearing suddenly,
\nfiercely and unreasonably optimistic.
\nIn another side yard, years ago
\nthese same pointed spikes of green
\nequally dogged and determined and light
\nfilled a barren yard where in summer
\nthe ancient catalpa would cast darkness
\nso complete, no grass ever grew
\nbut in April and afterward these leaves
\narise, an undisturbed tradition, rising
\nto provide for may day and mothers day
\nthe most fragrant and cherished bouquet.
\nHere, in my own yard, they endeavor
\ncheered perhaps by daffodils before them and
\nholding within those tightly twisted leaves
\neverything they need to delight the nose
\nand fill glasses on windowsills everywhere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I saw the twists of lilies of the valley coming up by the diner this morning and remembered the side yard of my paternal grandparent and my father’s aunt and uncle’s house. Lilies of the Valley By the steps, bound … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[13,222,65,51],"tags":[878,24,541,378],"class_list":["post-15858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-do-the-work","category-gardens-and-flowers","category-napowrimo","category-the-creative-process","tag-flower","tag-garden","tag-napowrimo","tag-spring"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3FVAs-47M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15859,"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15858\/revisions\/15859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}