Waking up to snow yesterday after a period of glorious, warm sunshine, was quite a shock. I was at my parents', who have a lovely cherry tree in their front garden. It is just beginning to open out and I feared that it would meet the fate it so often does, losing its blossom to rough winds and a sudden re-emergence of winter before anyone has had a chance to appreciate it.
A. E. Houseman has a lovely poem about a blooming cherry tree with snow on its bough, although in his case the sentiment he attaches to this is not the sadness of beauty perhaps going unnoticed but of the brevity of life. The narrator realises how important it is to notice the beauty of the cherry with snow on its bough because, even though he is only twenty, the number of occasions he will ever have to see such a thing are limited.
Loveliest of Trees
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
A.E. Houseman
Your mention of cherry blossom reminded me of the poems of Kobayashi Issa,
ReplyDeleteand the General Election result brought to mind this particular poem –
a corrupt world
in its latter days...
but cherry blossoms!
More from Issa, Basho and Buson here―
http://poetsonline.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/cherry-blossom-haiku-and-seasons.html
Here’s a few of my own haiku –
winter deep and hard
sharp with brittle icicles
frost is finger-thick
i gave you a rose
with permafrosted petals
it thawed at your touch
words falling like snow
icily incessant truths
melting on friendship
a butterfly fell
into a dream of flowers:
your eyelids fluttered
Thank you for the links, Eddie, and also for sharing your own haiku. I particularly like the last one. As to the one that brings the General Election to mind, I take hope from it ;o)
ReplyDeleteI love cherry blossom trees and this poem really resonates with me. A few friends had bad news recently and I remember walking home one day looking at the cherry blossom tree outside a park near me, thinking how important it is to focus on the beautiful things in life!
ReplyDeleteThat's the sentiment that resonated with me too, Vikki. Like you, I love cherry blossom trees. The brevity of their bloom makes them all the more special and beautiful.
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