More Spring Beauty

My walk home from grade school and high school was along a street with maybe a quarter mile of cherry trees like this. Walking along that street in Spring was like walking along an enchanted palace driveway in Narnia. I had planned to have my wedding bouquet made of cherry blossoms, until my mother pointed out the petals would drop and a tree’s branches are a bit stiff for bouquets. Plus we got married in May, two months after cherry blossom season in Yorkshire as in Portland. So my bridesmaids’ dresses were cherry-blossom pink, and I carried pale pink roses. But every year when the cherry trees bloom, I think of walking home from school in the northern sun.

Even though I now know some of the trees laden with pink flowers are flowering plums.