Patagonia blooms & A.E. Housman

"Loveliest of Trees"

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.

I sent Mia this photograph; in return, she sent this poem by A.E. Housman. I re-re-reread it this morning, as the sun rose, and at first, felt overwhelmingly sad -- panicked, almost as though time was moving too quickly. But then I crept out of my room and opened the windows in the kitchen nook. Cool air rushed in with the smell of citrus blossoms (FAV AROMA EVAH) and I felt grateful for something unnamed and very big.