Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough
And stands along 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.
A.E. Housman

I kept thinking of these words yesterday, of how beauty is bounded by time, how all things precious are. And so this seasonal ritual is not just spectacle, not just renewal, it is reminder.

The blossoms are fleeting; they, like us, will come and go. But we’re here, and they’re here.

There’s nothing left to do but seize the day.