[dmeredith]: 352.Sakura

We generally have two or three METERS of snow on the ground all winter here in Shinjo. Finally it's all starting to melt. The cherry trees are getting ready to bloom and this is a brief reflection on that. Mostly it's born from the almost morbid depression I've felt at seeing nothing but white, black, and grey since November. (today is 3/11/06)


          Sakura

Long and black has the morbid chill held sway, but as the last of the bitter, winter snows fade it comes; Small, red, and gangrel like a tiny wart on the skeletal fingers of the grasping, frost smitten cherry. Yet from such inauspicious beginnings it swells with the dews left at the departure of frosty rime and the spray of cool mountain springs swollen by the final throws of winter's demise. Not unlike a tumor, a deformation it may have begun but soon does it bulge and swell to an anxious state of pregnant anticipation. And as the very last of the cold gray slush recedes does it burst forth in a veritable explosion of gentle pink brilliance. Tiny petals, tender and new, crowded among their fellows and they among theirs until the rugged mountainside is skirted by a cotton candy forest. Herald of spring, crier of warmth, life, renewal. And though its time is but short and soon the petals will fade, falling all around me like a warm, pink, spring snow, even in death it announces the coming of summer and the leafy greening of the mist shrouded peaks of lingering white. Thus does it hint of shade and refuge from subsequent scorching heat. With quickened heart and bated breath in the last cold, dark gasps of winter do I await thee with unmitigated anticipation. Oh, my sakura.

-David Meredith
March 1, 2006