Blossom

Poems and Thoughts from the Anxious Poet

Blossom on Bannerdale Road Sheffield - Photo Adrian Scott

Blossom 
As you drive past
the hanging blossom of the cherry tree, 
you are moving too fast. 

Their pale luminescence an unnoticed glory, 
a promise, year by year, you fail to keep. 

But one day soon you will stop,
get out of the car
and amble down the aisle of spring. 

There you will feel
the tidal pull of all that growth, 
the vernal current of possibility. 

It will be time to call an end to speed 
and the unspoken grimness of hurry. 

What will the blossom say
as it falls kindly on your upturned face?

‘You are my witness,
your presence a sign that falling is never wasted.’

Look the strewn confetti of a richer life 
is all around you, all you have to do
is trust its kindness to bring you home. 

Then you will see; there is no other life for you, 
hidden in someone else’s wake. 

Only this marriage to everything you meet 
on the roughened track covered in blossom. 

Only to welcome yourself as a guest
at these unexpected nuptials of self-compassion. 

Only this spring, your own spring, 
blossoming open before your astonished face. 

Listen to Adrian read the poem below with an accompaniment by Andy Selman

For years I would drive down Bannerdale Road in Sheffield and register fleetingly the wonderful blossom on either side of the residential and suburban street. I would think to myself that one day I would stop the car and just walk up and down the pavement and breathe in the intoxicating glory of the blossom.

This went on for about 10 years and then, in May 2013, I finally succumbed to that invitation and armed with my camera strolled for about an hour - up and down the street. It was a wonderful experience.

May 2013 - Bannerdale Road - Photo Adrian Scott

It felt as if I were at a wedding of some kind and that the confetti was being sprinkled all around me.

Fallen Blossom - Photo Adrian Scott

I went on to write the poem above as a memory and celebration of the fact that I finally stopped and learned to appreciate the wonder all around me on a very ordinary Sheffield street.