The Flush on the Cherry Blossoms

A lone figure standing below the boughs spoke to the blossoms.

Shinjuku, Tokyo by author

I was ambling to the bus stop, distracted, and waiting for my wife to catch up. It was a breezy spring afternoon and I chose to cut through the small corner temple to the bus stop.

I glanced at the sky from below the trees. Tepid? Could a sky be tepid? Moody and yet not moody.

Standing no more than four and a half feet tall with a slight regal stoop, that caused her dusty rose cardigan to hang forward, was a solitary old Obachan, grandmother. Her trousers were a non-descript charcoal. Like so many souls of her age, she wore a bucket style cloth hat. It was wrinkled with time and worn with a mystical wonder. It was her.

We were alone. It was two p.m. and the spring warmth of the day had slipped off. There was no other sound, even the swallows had stopped their chatter to watch the brittle old figure. It was only the petals that spoke to her.

Not wanting to startle her reverie, I scuffed one of the spaghetti-like roots of twisted tendrils that like hope-filled fingers criss-crossed the temple grounds.

She sensed my presence and glanced up. I think she glanced. So hooded were her eyes, lost in a cavalcade of laughing lines, that I was not sure she could even see. Her smile burst forth and several…