I was walking into town on the trail that skips along Eagle Harbor and deposits you at the western-most edge of Winslow Way. The cherry trees on the grounds of Sun Day Cove condominiums are in bloom right now, and I wanted my fill of their beauty.
What I didn't anticipate was a poem carefully printed out in a rosy font and secured to one of the branches in a mostly watertight plastic sleeve.
If you have a chance, stop by to stand under the blossoms and read what's there for yourself. If that's not possible, here it is, a lovely poem by AE 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.
Since I am closer to "threescore years and ten" than to the poet's "twenty score," I certainly can't count on another fifty springs. I'm glad I used one day this spring to enjoy the view, the sunshine and a lovely walk with family members, and that I stopped, not to smell the roses, but to read a poem hanging like ripe fruit for the reading. I want to thank whoever planted it there for me and other passers-by. Imagine if we found poems wherever we travelled!
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