The Demise of a Wanton Harlot

As a child you do not acknowledge the romance of the cherry blossom tree. You see it. It is pretty. You reach out for it as you swing high on your multi-coloured swing set, jumping out in the hope that you might catch a bunch before you fall to floor and bruise your arm. You sit at the trunk for hours and look upwards to a sky of pink and wonder if it tastes as much like candyfloss as it looks. You ask yourself why it is called cherry blossom when no cherries grow from it. But you never see the romance of the blossom as it buds and blooms and then ultimately falls seductively from the tree and cover the brown ground with its delicate colour.

I would gaze for months on end at my sad and lonely tree shivering in the harsh winds of the cruel English autumn and only wish the snow would come soon to blanket her bare branches. Weeks would pass and I would wait with the patience of the child I was for any sign of her re-growth. And then one day the sun would come out and with trepidation I would gaze out of my window and find her blushing pink and shouting out to the world… “the Spring is here!”

But with Spring follows the Summer, the unbearable heat weighing us down, temperatures and tempers rising and only the Winter to look forward to. And I sit under my tree and watch all the blossom falling off and wonder why Spring sprung off so soon… could I not hold the coil for any longer?

Time to cool off and jump back in the sea.