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TH: The Japanese Flowering Cherry Trees
Reply-To: Tree-House@Majordomo.Flora.Com -------------------------------
Melanie Choukas-Bradley & Polly Alexander, 'City of Trees' (1987).
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For centuries the flowering cherry tree or "Sakura" has stood at
the center of Japan's poetic consciousness as a powerful symbol
of the beautiful, yet transient nature of life. Ancient legends
tell how the cherry blossoms are awakened in spring by "the maiden
who causes trees to bloom" or by fairies who visited the emperor
at the palace of Yoshino in the moonlight. Japanese paintings
abound with delicate "Sakura" blossoms. Poets throughout the
ages have exalted the cherry tree and mourned the brief life of
its blossoms, often in the same breath.
The world-famous Japanese cherry trees encircling the Tidal Basin
in Washington's West Potomac Park were a gift to the American
people from the city of Tokyo. They are probably the world's
greatest living symbol of friendship between two nations ...
--
The cherry trees
Unmindful of this sad world,
have burst into bloom.
And in the capital too
Now must be their glory.
One's thoughts *could* run that way on a spring visit to Tokyo
or Kyoto today. But the poem was not written by a nostalgic
American, nor, indeed by anyone alive today. It was the work
of an anonymous Japanese poet who wrote it approximately 600
years ago.
- From 'City of Trees'
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