The Lilacs of Ishpeming

By Jane Piirto

Every year the second week of June welcomes an explosion of lavenders, a riotous splendor of survival. Coexistent with forget-me-nots and apple blossoms, old lilacs open in old yards near rundown houses Cleveland, New York Locations, mines now closed; in unkempt yards near derelict houses.

Syringa vulgaris, sturdy and stubborn, staying alive rendering beauty. Banks. Clouds. Mounds. Masses. Bundles. Hills. Dunes, clumps, of lilacs. The dapple of blooms overruns dilapidated shacks, leans over aged fences. Amethyst cones. Plum shafts.

Drive into the abandoned neighborhoods of Negaunee on Merry Street where sinking ground made the homeowners flee. Steps with no porches lead to thickets of bushes grown to trees. Yellow swallowtail butterflies dart.

Walk the path along Lake Superior. Tiers and verges. Borders shore the shore. Appropriately, French lilacs thrive in the rocky Father Marquette Park. And the air! Sniff the essence, distill summer’s advent. Put it to your nose. Remember. Girls used to plan their weddings for this week. They filled the altars with these blooming canes and branches their heart-shaped leaves green as ivy, a verdant quintessence, blessed hope for love undying, violet royal persistence.

Hurry! take the clippers. Find pretty vases. Fill your house with bruises of blossom glow. Drive the old, tired mining towns with your windows down. Breathe.

Jane Piirto, Ph.D., is a Finnish American native of Ishpeming. Her best-known local book, A Location in the Upper Peninsula (Sampo Publishing), is available in local libraries and on Kindle. Northern Michigan University awarded her a B.A. and an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. Now retired as a Trustees’ Distinguished Professor from Ashland University, she worked for 53 years as an educator at various universities and school districts in Michigan, Ohio, South Dakota and New York. She is an award-winning scholar and literary author with 20 books and chapbooks, including Individual Artist Fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council in poetry and in fiction. She is listed as both a poet and a writer in the Directory of American Poets & Writers.