Cherry Blossoms and Dogwood Blooms

From “Petals from Heaven” by Kobayashi Issa in The Penguin Book of Haiku by Adam L. Kern:

petals from heaven
         flurrying down it seems
oh cherry trees!

From “On Windless Days” by Miura Chora in The Penguin Book of Haiku by Adam L. Kern:

on windless days
         scattering that much more…
cherry blossoms

From “Spring Snow” in The Windbreak Pine: New and Collected Haiku 1985-2015 by Wally Swist:

spring snow —
                  an unopened bud at the end
of each branch of the dogwood

From “Down to Dark Leaf-Mold” by O. Southard in A Haiku Path by The Haiku Society of America:

Down to dark leaf-mold
         the falling dogwood-petal
                  carries its moonlight

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Hello!

Here we have some photographs of cherry blossoms and dogwood blooms, taken at Oakland Cemetery’s Gardens last month. Funny that the phrase “cherry blossoms and dogwood blooms” sounds better than “cherry blooms and dogwood blossoms” — though I have no idea why. Words are just amusing like that, I guess.

Both kinds of trees were blooming bounteously — the volume of blossoms was actually quite stunning. I would’ve liked to have taken even more cherry blossom photos — but the trees had so carefully scattered spent flowers on all the surrounding sidewalks (as in the first four photos below), I kept my distance and did some zooming closeups instead. Somehow it just seemed wrong to trample on that mass of scentually intoxicating (buzzzzz!) pink petals. I also thought I might get stuck in a blossom-drift; you know, I’m quite short and they’re piled pretty high. (This may or may not be true.)

Thanks for taking a look!

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