In spring, tiger lilies bloom down the street from where she
lives, rising up in a makeshift garden next to a Mexican restraint on the cliff,
the stalks rising out of the brown earth as in the background, the New York
Skyline looms, somehow pressing up out of the clutter of chewing gum wrappers
and expired cans of diet Coke, tiger lilies that seem to guard the passage to
her house, like so many stone lions on the porches of houses along the way,
lilies I come back to have if no time has passed since the first time I
wandered here, sometimes coming later than I expect, but always eventually
there, while I always fear they won’t return, as if someone has dug up the bulbs
and transplanted them elsewhere, leaving me no spring surprise, no hope for the
future, no break from this otherwise bleak concrete environment, and yet they
always return, rising up, filling the dull world with a bit of color we all
need at that time of year, symbolic of her spirit, of what she was and always
will be, a tiger lily that returns to life, year after year.
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