The fire that burns the brightest leaves the biggest hole.
In the sky, they dangle like pom-poms, pendulous and heavy compared to their single brothers and sisters. Some consider them garish and overblown. I can’t find fault with that – I mean, I understand the backlash against such hybridization. It’s unnatural, it’s unwieldy, and the end result is out of place in certain spaces, but I can also appreciate its very over-the-top aspect. More is sometimes more. I also enjoy its late blooming period, one that allowed me to catch this show before it was over.
This is the bold and bodacious Kwanzan cherry.
Locally, our cherries suffered a few late-season hard-freezes that zapped several beloved flowering sessions – the cherries and the lilacs included. This reduced the magnificent showing they usually put on, but there’s always next year. Sometimes even trees need a year off now and then.
The ones here suffered no such hardships, and thus were royally resplendent. They waved their pink puffs proudly in the air, holding them high against a deep blue sky, as if aware of how to present to their best advantage. Yet such arrogance must come to an end, and the life cycle of a cherry blossom is a lesson in the preciously short life of certain beauty.
In the end we all fall down, and not all beauty is everlasting.
The memory, however, may be kept as long as we want it.
I’ll hold this one until the next spring.
