Blossom
Poems and Thoughts from the Anxious Poet
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.
This year has been outstanding for blossom. My wife commented that perhaps, as the world is such a shitshow, nature is reminding us that there is more to life than the madness of politics. As Mary Oliver says in her seminal poem The Wild Geese:
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.From The Wild Geese - Mary Oliver
That meanwhile is so important! My poem is about a street in Sheffield that I used to live near called Bannerdale Road. Every year and spectacularly this year, it has incredible mature Cherry trees that are festooned in pink and white blossom.
I had driven up and down the road on numerous occasions and kept saying that one day I would stop and just appreciate the meanwhile. That meanwhile, whilst I was charging around- here was the aisle of Spring. For that few moments it was time to call an end to vehicular speed and get onto my feet and abandon the unspoken grimness of hurry. As you can see from the photos it was glorious and it felt like being at a wedding.
There is no other life, it seemed to say, to be found by trying to live like someone else no matter how inspiring or brilliant. People I meet sometimes speak of the their teacher or a person they follow. I have said the same at times. I once aspired to be one of those kind of people. This experience seemed to be telling me to give up on all that. Two of the biggest influences on my life both point to this. Francis of Assisi made it very clear he lived the way he had been led and those who came after him should find their way to do the same. Carl Gustav Jung the great psychologist advocated a journey of individuation - the process of developing a distinct, unique, and whole sense of self. So, no imitation, rather a painful and joyful way of finding our own path.
This Easter that has seen the passing of Pope Francis and also the upsurge of narcissistic and self referential leadership - may we find the courage to go out into the meanwhile and find our place in the family of things and as a consequence realise that every one has a place in that family.
Compassion means among others things - to suffer with - I tried to capture some of this in a poem I wrote about St Francis. He like Pope Francis who took his name, were ones who ‘who beheld what thrones and dominations occlude, what those who gaze upward never see’.
Here is evidence of the Pope’s willingness to choose to look downwards and not upwards for the locus of who to suffer with, whom to extend compassion towards.
In a May 2024 interview with 60 Minutes, Pope Francis talked about how his calls to the parish in Gaza, occurring every evening at 7 p.m., were part of his daily routine. “They tell me about what happens there. It is very tough, very tough,” the Pontiff said. “I listen… and they tell me things. There is a lot of suffering.”
Time Magazine
These calls happened until his death on Monday. He expressed equal compassion for Palestinians and for those Israelis whose families were hostages. He will be hard to follow but I hope he has appointed a Cardinal who possesses not only his Franciscan instincts but also has the courage to go further. That the college of cardinals elect someone to challenge the world to stop the car, to call an end to the speed with which we are destroying the planet and the unspoken grimness of seeking our own profit at the cost of the millions of poor and disenfranchised. To admit the Catholic Church’s complicity in the terrible child abuse scandal and address the real causes - the instinct to organisational self protection and the preservation of power rather than looking to protect the least. We need a voice of compassion - now more than ever. I will finish with Pope Francis’s words in his homily for the Easter Vigil just four days ago -
Brothers and sisters, during this Jubilee Year in particular, we should feel strongly within us the summons to let the hope of Easter blossom in our lives and in the world!
Amen...
Beautiful.