Janet Frame, cherry blossom and awe

Every spring I’m lost in the glory of a cherry blossom tree in our neighbourhood. Poet Janet Frame expresses what many of us feel—awe.

... we saw the cherry tree in flower and at once spent
a life's rich astonishment. 

I see it from three rooms in my apartment and it stops me in my tracks from the moment the first bud opens. The cherry blossom tree has its own fan club, which includes tuis galore (absent from this photo). People visit me especially for the view from my deck. (Hurry up people, it’s cherry blossom peak.)

The beauty of cherry blossom is at once excessive, over the top, downright vulgar in its lack of restraint— and yet so dainty, delicate, nervous, transient. The combination takes your breath away. I get an overwhelming gut reaction every time. Never get used to it. Tears, like for Bambi or Lassie. And I’m not alone: why else the annual Japanese phenomenon of Hanami with its cherry blossom appreciation picnics?

And every year I think again of Janet Frame’s poem, The Flowering Cherry. The complete poem is a brilliant, impeccably constructed theory and story binding the fruit to the flowers—but let me quote a few lines that fill my heart today.

When next you pass the flowering cherry now, in September,
look closely at the cool dark wine house
where the blackbirds sing for their supper
where the human senses sing for their survival.

A treasure: Janet Frame reading The Flowering Cherry in her own mesmerising voice in Poetry Archive.