The Cherry Blossom

The Cherry Blossom

Six springs have come, and with them

The blooming wonder of Love’s witness,

Embodied in the cycles of a cherry tree:

Natural rhythms, repeating, each in season,

Perfect, perfectly sequential, as if we could

Set our watch to it, plant it, own it, betting

Our faith on such patterns, moving yet static.

In those six years, the slow motion of time,

And the lulling, blinding patterns, we often miss

The one constant: change. The world changes,

And we change, and we don’t see it always

Because watches are not set by such things,

Nor do they work in rhythm, or arrayed

In such colorful livery; instead they are small,

Infinitesimally small, invisibly small, but there,

Happening and guided by the same force

We witness to in our symbols, like trees,

Or rings, crosses, and decorously colored eggs.

We don’t see the struggle for resources,

Happening in the roots just below the soil,

The selection of which branch will win their race

Toward the light, connected but fighting,

Finding their own way. That all happens below

The surface, and we get distracted by blooms.

How could we not, for their radiance burns

A bright pink, it seems to burst, to bust,

Forth from the cold winter’s strangle, struggle,

And make for us a checkpoint, where we

Can breathe, and rest, and in such rest assess

Where we are, and where we are going,

Making plans, setting a schedule, for now

We have perspective on what was and is,

And then what then must always be, A happy

Moment, forever lasting, or a troubling truth,

That will never not be—our faith and vision

Caught up in this moment because beauty

Is a benchmark, and such must Love always be?

Do we then today, a blooming day, look back

To the planting, and compare, our plans then

To what is now, and do we sigh, or doubt

That our symbols are empty, for love cannot

Be like this? Our plans were very different.

I would never have thought this, nor could

I have ever seen that, but yet it is.

Though our symbols work in sequence, and are

For us the visible signs of love, real love,

True love, the love that created and gives life,

Gives blooms, bears fruit, is truth itself

Cannot be captured by our symbols, nor can it

Be destroyed by them, for symbols are thoughts,

And thoughts are dreams, and dreams

Are the fanciful product, of idling rest

Assessments, but Love is more than beauty,

Never resting, always working, in the messy,

Dirty soil of roots, which clench the source tightly,

So it does not break, nor fade, nor die, nor wilt,

When the seasons change, but lasts, holding on,

And is working beyond the fruits we see,

In the struggling, clenching fight of doubt as well.