Night Blooms

"When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom'd,

And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,

I mourn'd - and yet shall mourn with ever returning spring.

                                                                                            Walt Whitman

I went for a walk this evening and saw these flowers, the only two on a large bush. How appropriate. I saw a concert at the Royal Conservatory on Saturday night of a piece by a composer named Jennifer Higdon. It was a premiere entitled Night Blooms, inspired by the Walt Whitman poem  Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed. I don't often go to music concerts but the tickets were given to me and I do love poetry, as you know.
It was a painfully beautiful piece for piano, quartet and voice that explores "so many aspects of grief and loss", according to the program notes. I've been experiencing my own grief lately having had my heart very badly broken. It made me feel a little less lonely sitting there in the dimness experiencing those words & that music with so many other people. 
I walk when I am upset. It calms me. Sometimes I take my camera in case I see anything exceptional. These lilacs were especially enticing. The air was a bit thick tonight and one could smell them before seeing them. The colour in the evening light was deep and bruised. They have such a short yearly life span, lilacs do, but my, aren't they lovely while they last?