Spring

Jean Giono in Joy of Man’s Desiring calls spring “that time of year when the trees are in love with each other.” I had forgotten it, but happily the phrase came back to me today as I passed down a shaded avenue in a rain of falling blossoms. Proof of the trees’ amours is spread on the balmy, fondling air in the form of little scalloped petals, pink and white, semi-transparent, fragile as the fingernails of infants.  In the oblivion of their passion the trees pay no attention to those who admire them but pass the whole day exchanging ardent, melting glances with one another.