the death of the lilac goddess

i am in my mother’s garden, filled with lilac bushes. is there a word for the childhood hidden in lilac dew? no, there is none. instead, i look for heavy branches to put them in those improbable vases of mine, to find the unique configuration of a space inhabited by an abundance of flowers and yet empty at the same time.

i cut my finger. i put my finger in my mouth and lick that one drop of blood. in the other time, the possible time that was once the real time, out of the blood drop a small boy would have been born. the small boy would have jumped in his small boat and gone out to find the small girl dancing on the tip of my tongue, her breasts white as milk and her teeth sparkling with laughter. holding their hands, they would have climbed the lilac bush and at their marriage celebration they would have drunk the dew out of a thousand lilac blossoms. a thousand lilac worlds would have been born, rotating in each pore of my skin, a lilac sun hanging at the centre of their thousand lilac skies.

but this time is not the time. it is only the time of my mortal breath and lilac is only a word tumbling down my tongue. i turn around and go inside, my arms full of flowers, my hair wet with dew, and each step is small as that of one who walks at a funeral.

(a small gift for Manuela, not unrelated, i think, to my post, how wonderfully she talks about the feminine time and the goddess of love...)