CHERRY BLOSSOMS OF JAPAN

Sorry, your browser doesn't support Java(tm). For centuries the flowering cherry tree or "Sakura" has stood at the center of Japan's poetic consciousness as a powerful symbol of the beautiful, yet transient nature of life. Ancient legends tell how the cherry blossoms are awakened in spring by "the maiden who causes trees to bloom" or by fairies who visited the emperor at the palace of Yoshino in the moonlight. Japanese paintings abound with delicate "Sakura" blossoms. Poets throughout the ages have exalted the cherry tree and mourned the brief life of its blossoms, often in the same breath. The world-famous Japanese cherry trees encircling the Tidal Basin in Washington's West Potomac Park were a gift to the American people from the city of Tokyo. They are probably the world's greatest living symbol of friendship between two nations ...

-- The cherry trees--

Unmindful of this sad world,

have burst into bloom.

And in the capital too

Now must be their glory.

One's thoughts "could" run that way on a spring visit to Tokyo or Kyoto today. But the poem was not written by a nostalgic American, nor, indeed by anyone alive today. It was the work of an anonymous Japanese poet who wrote it approximately 600 years ago. - From 'City of Trees'

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