Blue Sky and Cherry Trees

Let me tell you of an early spring day when the sky was high and blue and the sun was shining. Two dozen gulls had come north from the lake and were wheeling high overhead, calling to me to Look! Look! So I watched them circle and wheel and ride the thermals in joy (they certainly weren't checking out the fishing, given that they were 1) too high and 2) over land, not water). As they soared and dived and twisted with their wings outstretched, the sun glinted from them and they made silvery, gull-shaped rents in the blue sky, as if allowing us to see the silver backdrop hidden behind the blue. I hadn't known, until the day the gulls called me to look, that our blue sky really does have a silver lining.

 

High Park's cherry trees are the city's delight. The radio and newspapers trumpet the phenomenon with the result that half the city is making the pilgrimage to the park, walking south down the path on the west side of the park to the point where the cherry tree lane veers off to the southwest. The cherry trees are a diaphanous vision of palest pink, the blossoms so plentiful that the entire hill is light, airy, ethereal. Our 6 a.m. walks have not been affected by the crowds except for one morning when we encountered four separate photographers setting up their tripods. It made us feel a little guilty as we strode down the hill, forcing them to delay their shots until we were safely beyond the frame.

 

The blossoms are lasting well because of the lack of rain. Nonetheless, the last time I passed by them, the cherry trees were a smudged green/pink as the leaves began to force out the blossoms, which floated down to the asphalt path and created around each tree huge petalled circles of palest pink dots smaller than a dime. The feet that trod up and down that asphalt lane gradually scuffed the petals to the side of the path, building up long piles of pink on either side. Walking through the cherry trees at the end of their week of glory is like being the bride whose favourite niece is strewing the aisle with petals piled in her satin-trimmed basket.

 

 

Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor

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