I'm so sad the cherry blossoms in my garden are going away!. Pale pink petals are flying in the wind and scattered on the ground. Wind, don't blow! Oh, how much I'm missing them! Actually I was very happy and excited this ten days, during the cherry blossom season. Long ago a Japanese poet wrote, "If we had not had cherry blossoms, we could live more calmly in spring." Yes, we all get excited in this season; when it blooms, where to go to watch, where good trees are, and so on.
Yeserday was Sunday, and my family went out with lunch to enjoy cherry blossoms. First, we went up to the ruined castle and enjoyed the view, then visited some more places with cherries. None of them are famous, and so, there were not many people, but the blossoms were so beautiful.
Once, a foreighner asked me," Your cherry trees don't have any fruit to eat. Why do you plant them?" Why? I don't know. But we love the blossoms and plant the trees not only in the gardens but on the river banks, along the roads, by the grave yards, around the schools. It's a little strange to plant them only for the blossom season of a week or so a year, but we have planted them.
You sometimes find cherry blossoms also in the mountains. They are wild trees. Only when they have blossoms, we recognize them. I love those wild cerries,too. A week ago, I visited Ogawa-village. It is a s
mall village in the mountains near Nagano-city. and it was amazingly beautiful with wild cherry blossoms. The village seemed to be in the pink cloud. But if you visit it after you read this essay, it's too late. You have to wait untill next spring.