Sakura

This spring was my first cherry blossom season in Japan. They come out slowly at first: you can see the buds, then the occasional heraldic blossom peeks out on its branch until you wake up each morning to find the trees markedly fuller than the day before. Even without leaves or blossoms, the trees are beautiful with a sort of delicate jaggedness, but then they detonate into hundreds of tiny pink and white masterpieces. Families, friends, and coworkers picnic under the trees wherever they can be found, couples rove through the parks and streets, and children play under the flowers that will forever color their memory of spring. Then the petals begin to flutter down, covering cars, covering streets, blowing away, graceful in their exit as in their entrance. That they fade so fast is part of their beauty.

"There is an activity of God displayed throughout creation...some are reminders, and others prophecies."
-C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock