Cherry Blossoms

Spent the last few days "off the grid" in Washington, DC at the Cherry Blossom Festival. The peak is supposed to be today through Friday, but it was pretty spectacular over the weekend, even with a snow shower on Sunday.


What I learned about cherry trees: Yes, they were a gift of friendship from Japan in 1912, but several Americans had been lobbying and working hard to make it happen over several decades. This included First Lady Helen Taft, activist Eliza Scidmore and USDA official David Fairchild. Athough there are many varieties of cherry trees throughout Washington, most of the trees around the Tidal Basin are the Yoshino variety. These ornamental trees do not produce the sweet edible cherries we all love, but a small bitter fruit that birds eat. The buds appear pink at first, turn white, like fleeting clouds (a popular image in Japanese art and culture) before dropping like snow to the ground.

Yo no naka wa

Mikka mnu ma ni

Sakura kana

(Life is short like the three day glory of the cherry blossom)

The pamphlet I had, suggested you try composing your own Japanese haiku (a three line poem with the first and last lines having five syllables, while the middle line has seven syllables). So, here goes:

White snowy blossoms
Float like clouds--too bad they bring
oh so many crowds

Don't pick the flowers
Please keep your kids from climbing
The Park Ranger's job :(((

Ephemeral blooms

reflecting water, bright sky

soon a memory

Writing haiku is definitely addictive. Try it, but here's a warning. My Readheads book group wrote haikus for someone's birthday, but then we couldn't stop. Even our emails were syllabically correct, until we came to our senses.


Enough this must end
Twitter in 5-7-5
Leave email alone!


A final note:  in one of life's lovely coincidental connections, last week I went to a concert of The Wailin' Jennys, a folk group and loved one of their songs called  Cherry Blossom Love.  (click to hear the you tube version)

FDR monument

springtime in DC!

Jefferson Memorial