2164 (redbud)

After all, we sleep among secrets
and wake to their burden.
If we could pay attention at all points then
theory would be what really is there. But then
another intimacy begins…

-- Ann Lauterbach, lines from "Stepping Out"

2138 (cherry)

Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now

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. Housman