It’s that time of year again.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)

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


Actually -- truth in blogging -- my personal middle stanza would go more like this:

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Sixty-eight will not come again,
And take from seventy springs eight and threescore,
It only leaves me a couple more.

Of course, I intend to stick around for several more decades, but my recent 69th birthday puts a whole new perspective on this year’s spring: it makes it all the more lovely. I could never see enough of the delicate, beautiful cherry blossoms -- or the dogwoods or the redbuds or the tulip trees or the flowering peaches or the Bradford pears, for that matter, and I won’t even begin to talk about the azaleas (and the rhododendrons and the mountain laurel and the forsythia and the jonquils and the narcissus and the daffodils and the phlox and the...).