Blossoms in winter

I’ve been dwelling—dwelling, as one does when Western civilisation seems to be going to hell in a handcart—on my own peculiar determination that all the things we love must surely be crammed into that same handcart.

What do I mean by that? At end of my in-laws’ street in Enfield, where Nav and I have been living for these few past months, there’s a cherry tree. In the middle of December, as I was shuffling out through the frost and thick, heavy cold of a pre-morning, disconsolate at the time I had to leave for court, I saw that the cherry tree had started to blossom.

The beauty of a cherry tree in bloom is the kind of thing that makes you pause, sigh with quiet awe, note that it glows even when it reflects no light; a touch of the old mono no aware—wistfulness at life’s fleeting nature; think on the haiku:

The temple bell stops—

but the sound keeps coming out

of the flowers.

Instead, I was hit with a dull, sad rage. She was not dressed in white for Eastertide. To see cherry blossoms in December felt like some grim omen, something broken. Like finding a Cadbury’s Creme Egg in October, or Christmas cake in March. Something so beautiful, made grotesque by asynchronicity. How have we so royally cocked up the world that even this ancient emblem of spring and spring alone is now blooming at the wrong time of year?

It turns out—thankfully—that I was wrong! Britain, it seems, has a history of planting decorative winter blossoms. They are not victims of climate-induced arboreal confusion; they are bred specifically to flower in the cold months, entirely by design.

Of course, there is something perverse in this. These trees fill no ecological niche. Their blossoms attract no hardy winter bumblebees, offer no sustenance, and exist solely because we humans decided it might be nice to see something blooming while everything else is in hibernation. But still, they are doing what they were bred to do, not flailing in response to an overheated world.

This realisation brings with it a half-pint of peace. It serves as a reminder that, while there may be plenty to be upset about these days, we don’t need to be upset about everything. Not every oddity is a sign of collapse. Not every beautiful, out-of-place moment needs to be crammed into that proverbial handcart.

What about this from Wendell Berry’s poem “Manifesto: the Mad Farmer Liberation Front”?

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion—put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

No, I don’t know what humus in this context is either. But I’ll put my faith in it.