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Sunday
Aug122012

Cherry blossom

Blossoms are bursting out all over Melbourne, which puts me in mind of a poem my Dad introduced me to many years ago – part of a cycle of 63 poems published as ‘A Shropshire Lad’ in 1896 by A.E. Housman.

 

II Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

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.

 

Such an apparently simple poem, but it takes at least a couple of readings to pick up the subtleties of cherry trees ‘hung with snow’ at Eastertide, especially for Antipodean readers.

Then there’s the maths – never my strong point. For a long time, partly because I associated it with my father, I thought this poem was about an old man, feeling wistful that he wouldn’t see many more spring times. When I paid closer attention to the second verse, however, I realised it is about a 20-year-old man speaking – the Shropshire lad (although Housman was 37 when he wrote these lines). Once I’d worked this out, I fell in love all over again with the idea of this youth thinking that 50 years was not enough time to gaze at cherry blossom in the spring. And so, deliberately spending time just mooching around, gazing at beauty. About the woodlands I will go. Sublime.

Many years ago, when I was struggling with depression, I used to write a lot of poetry. Here is one I wrote in 1997, not a depression poem at all, but a paean, really, to the springs of both northern and southern hemispheres. It’s a bit cheeky even putting it on the same page as Housman, but hey, if I can’t do that on my own blog, what’s the point of having one?

 

Midwinter Spring

Spring in Melbourne

Seems to come

Midwinter almost.

July, and golden wattle

Is everywhere, purple

Happy wanderer.

Not long after

Snowdrops and jonquils,

Then blossoms, pink and white,

And then

It’s on for young and old

Full blown, till springtime

Officially arrives.

 

Northern hemisphere

All is cold and seeming dead

For endless months

Of barren winter. Then

Suddenly it all happens:

Spring springs there,

Easter is a real

Bursting of life

From the tomb.

 

I’m grateful for our

Short mild winters

Laced with green and blossom but

Sometimes I yearn

For the sweetness of new life

After a long, real winter,

Like the incomparable taste

Of food after a fast.

 

My sweetheart and I are about to head for the northern hemisphere for a short while, and I am sad about missing the end of winter here – my favourite Melbourne season. But late summer in the UK and Europe sounds pretty good. While we’re there, we will spend plenty of time with our older lad who is only a few years older than 20, and my dad, who has, happily for all of us, well and truly exceeded his threescore years and ten and we hope will be around for a good few more yet.

To say we are looking forward to this would be an understatement. Life is full of wonder, and I don’t want to miss a single cherry blossom of it.

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Reader Comments (3)

Thanks for the poetry Clare, enjoy the time away and the family catch ups. Blessings on your journeys.

August 13, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterJay Robinson

Lovely poems and i enjoyed you placing the two together. Keep writing poetry and enjoy cherishing the time you have in another hemisphere! Happy travels and discoveries of the outer and inner kind, both!

August 13, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterSally Polmear

Enjoy reading your blogs Clare. I know exactly what you mean about the different feelings spring brings on in the two hemispheres. I am definitely a northern type. Enjoy your travels and the family reunions.x

August 14, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterSarah Matters

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