Blossom Viewing

Prepare yourself for some spectacular shots of blossoms, which I took early last Thursday morning. The weather forecast was for rain on the weekend, so I made sure to get to the Montreal botanical garden while the weather was still conducive to blossom viewing. In Japan, blossom viewing in spring is a national pastime and traditionally a woman would wear a special blossom-viewing kimono. In the West, we don't have quite such a reverential attitude toward blossoms and that is a bit of a shame. What did I wear today? A knitted cotton top, beige slacks and my Nike windbreaker. I chose comfort over beauty. But blossoms are all about beauty. Next time I'll try to make an effort to really dress up.

Here are a few photos from the Japanese Garden.

The best place to look at blossoms is of course in the apple and cherry orchard of the arboretum

The following photograph inspired this tanka:

a mass

of apple blossoms

there was never

a bride

as beautiful as this

what a day

to come blossom viewing

with the wind

and this world

weariness

*

crabapple blossoms

and the first

drops of rain

the stream is full

to overflowing

*

windy morning

cherry blossoms

whirling and spinning

my thoughts

never still

*

under apple blossoms

thinking of all

the perfume

in my cupboard

at home

*

Starting with this blog post, I'm going to make it a habit to introduce a less commonly known flower. This time I've chosen Siberian bugloss. It's a low lying plant that grows in the shade garden. It has the most lovely small blue flowers, which you can see in the photo below:

Siberian bugloss

such an unattractive name

for something

so light and pretty

and unabashedly blue

*

The other idea I've had is to invite another poet to accompany me on my walk through the garden. So starting next week I will be coming with a friend to write poems and check out what's new in the garden.

I'll just end with a reminder that the Japanese garden will be holding their annual picnic under the crabapple blossoms, which is called O-hanami, on May 17th, 2009, starting at 11:30AM. Let's hope it doesn't rain.