The Lilac Bush and the Apple Tree

We spent the weekend cleaning up the yard and moving wood piles. Not much to say except that the forsythia, violets and vinca are blooming in the yard, the deep red peonies are beginning to unfurl their leaves and the lilac and apple trees are showing their first green leaves -- which reminds me of one of my favorite songs. It was a nice sunny weekend, soon to be followed by cold and rain. Good for the rain, the ground was beginning to look parched.

The Lilac Bush and the Apple Tree
by Kate Wolf

The Lilac Bush and the Apple Tree
Were standing in the wood
Out on a hill above the town
Where once a farmhouse stood

And in the winter the leaves are bare
And no one sees the signs
Of a house that stood and a garden that grew
And life in another time

One spring when the buds came bursting forth
And grass grew on the land
The Lilac spoke to the Apple Tree
As only an old friend can

Do you think said the Lilac this might be the year
When someone will build here once more
Here by the cellar still open and deep
There's room for new walls and a floor

Oh no, said the Apple there are so few
Who come here on the mountain this way
And when they do, they don't often see
Why we're growing here so far away

A long time ago we were planted by hands
That worked in the mines and the mills
When the country was young and the people who came
Built their homes in the hills

But now there are cities the roads have come
And no one lives here today
And the only sign of the farms in the hills
Are the things not carried away

Broken dishes, piles of boards,
A tin plate, an old leather shoe
And an Apple Tree still bending down
And a Lilac where a garden once grew