color monday: lilacs

Outside my studio window a tall tangle of lilac branches bounce in the wind, conical heads heavy with tightly furled buds, curled against the cold, waiting. Waiting for a warm day when their formed petals will unfurl, seduced by sunlight, their sweet scent released, and each lilac head will be a bouquet unto itself, the sum of hundreds of tiny perfect five lobed blooms.

So every day I wait with the lilacs, for the warm day that will bring them into full bloom. I hope to bloom with them.

This is Color Monday and our palette is inspired by lilacs.

...In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings, 
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, 
With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love, 
With every leaf a miracle......and from this bush in the door-yard,
With delicate-color’d blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, 
A sprig, with its flower, I break...

—Walt Whitman, When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd