A Brief Beauty; A Lasting Peace?

Taken by Nicole Speulda 4.3.10

I’m not sure what tour guides in DC say about the Cherry Blossoms but thanks to a lovely last few weeks there are a lot of them this year out on the mall, talking about how Japan gifted us these seeds and how they were lovingly planted along the Tidal Basin in 1912. It’s true, in 1912 Japan gave the U.S. government 3,020 cherry blossom trees as a symbol of diplomatic courtship—the card reading “let’s be friends.” What I doubt these tour guides mention is how the majority of these trees were killed during the construction of the Jefferson Memorial (beginning 1939 and finishing in 1943), a tremendous monument that completes the 5 points along the mall.  The Jefferson is magnificent, one of my favorite monuments, and I’m glad he’s there, but the trees paid the price.

Two years after the original cherry trees were plowed under, the U.S. reciprocated by delivering its own present: 9,700 pounds of uranium 235 (12.5 kilotons of TNT) and named this gift “little boy,” for the city of Hiroshima and then two days later, spread its "fat man," seed-- 20 kilotons of TNT in the form of plutonium in Nagasaki.

What I find most remarkable, or perhaps poetic, is that the trees I see today are actually a re-gift;  In 1965 the Japanese government gave us a second batch of seedlings, this time 3,800 trees.  Maybe it's just me but I'm not so sure I'd offer up beauty after that, but they did.  For me it's a reminder of the power of good-will, symbolism and embracing the future.
In the week and a half since my sojourn to the cherry blossoms at their peak their beauty has stuck with me as well as all of the people who come to view them. It’s an international event and this time it just happens to coincide with the Nuclear Energy Summit. It reminds me to enjoy and appreciate the beauty of life because there are really horribly destructive options out there. So today we celebrate the loveliness of life option, of poetry and cherry trees.

The first poets to celebrate the cherry blossoms called them “sakura,” (“Japanese Flowering Cherry”), and the highest praise for their springtime symbolism and blooms changed throughout history depending on the age. Remarkably, Japanese historians can separate historical eras based on the way in which poets wrote about the sakura. Hanami (viewing the cherry blossoms), began when the Japanese capital was moved to Kyoto in 812 AD and was conceived as an event for the upper classes, something I envision in my mind as akin to Irving Berlin’s 1948 Easter Parade with Fred Astaire and Judy Garland and all the frills upon them.

The nobility in Japan would start important invocations with Sakura poems and the blossoms became a most important cultural tradition:

Looking at the Mountain Sakura in mist
I miss a person who looks at the Sakura
 ~ Kino Tsurayuki

If there were no cherry blossoms in the world,
My mind would be peaceful.
~ Fujiwara Norihira

Perhaps unsurprisingly, and if you’ve lived in DC for any period of time, the cherry blossom is associated with mortality as the blooming period is very short. Most years, April is a cruel month. The trees bloom and the very next day we’ll have high winds, a thunderstorm or two and the branches are stripped of their pink petals, naked for the next wave of onlookers. Here are some other Haikus celebrating life and death:

Shining spring day
Falling cherry blossoms with my calm mind
~ Kino Tomonari

Wishing to die under cherry blossoms in spring
Cherry blossom season in full moon time
~ Saigyo

Sleeping under the trees on Yoshino mountain
The spring breeze wearing Cherry blossom petals
~ Saigyo

Taken by Nicole Speulda 4.3.10