I’ve always look forward to the annual spring burst of cherry tree blossoms in Vancouver. A cascade of delicate pink, sometimes white blossoms, sweeps across the city,
in waves, for a month. Usually during the latter part of March into April.
While cherry trees are busting out, larger petals of magnolia flowering trees are breaking their tumescent
buds into a flamboyant dance of brilliant pink, even shocking magenta blooms. It’s as if the budding branches are punching the bright blue sky collectively in celebration. Palm-sized blooms thrust forward are like
loud happy fist pumps of celebrants for spring winning game. Or like a crowd of Spanish flamenco dancers, fiery and buoyant in the spring wind.
Some haiku:
Bright pink petals pops
Paints joy across the sky
Arching o’er admirers.
Tissue thin tremblers,
Quivering fragility —
Rain drops slide slowly
Trumpet our lives now,
Tap, skip ‘n swirling,
Joy-fling of jewelled arms.
Cherry blossom wands
Wave-sweep your birth spell,
Annoint your magic.
Blushing faces smile,
Peek shyly through petal
Fans flutter in wind.
Cycle Write Blog 
This is beautiful, Jean-the pictures, the prose and the haiku. This is also the first thing I have read this morning, what a great way to start the day, thank you 🙂
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🙂 So glad to bring spring-forward thoughts, bribikes.
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Beautiful Jean – great photos and I love the new look of your blog! ❤
Diana xo
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Still being tempted by Toujours. Great seeing you here, Diana. May spring be with us –buds, some rain for plants and lots of sunlight.
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Beautifully said Jean – Happy Spring!
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Gorgeous blossoms and fantastic pictures. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
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Whoa Jean… Spectacular pictures and lovely poetry – all of it! It’s been a while since I’ve visited your blog 😦 What’s up with that? I LOVE the new template or format or whatever they call they layout! How are you doing in your recover?
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Hi agegrace: Thank you. It’s Dyad theme. Good to hear from you. Yes, I’ve recovered well and have been cycling several times per wk. as usual since spring 2015. If not reflected on your blog (which I hope to chat up there), are you cycling at all now? What’s spring like at your end?
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Just love Magnolia blossom, just a shame they fade so quickly here.
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They do crumple and fall off soon from the trees. Doesn’t help when there are strong spring winds. I suppose in magnolias might in some warmer, cosier corners of UK, further inland?
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They just seem to grow brown quickly before they drop here.
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Here in North Germany Cherry and Magnolia started to bloom as well now, it looks wonderful. Nearly every house has those trees in their front yard and it looks really great. Few weeks back when we were in Cologne they were in full bloom again as it is slightly warmer there than our area which is 500Km to the North
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For whatever dumb reason, I never associated Germany as having many magnolia trees. But of course, Germany has climate that is similar to Vancouver minus salt air smells. Not a huge amount of snow in winter too.
Glad you can enjoy the cherry and magnolia blossoms. By the way, in the province of Ontario where I grew up, lived and worked for lst 40+ years, there weren’t that many cherry and magnolia trees. Of course, Vancouver received some of their older cherry trees as a gift directly from Japan.
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I know what you mean, I didnt imagine in Vancouver either with those trees.
Here the cherry trees are well liked and there are in some cities full streets lined with old trees, it really looks amazing during spring time
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The magnolia shots are beautiful. The light on them is lovely.
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I love the name of your blog, Louise. For some of those photos, it was the gentle light of morning and sunset that illuminated the magnolia blossoms.
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Jean these are gorgeous photos and delicate words to flow along with them. The west coast truly is a beautiful location.
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Hi Sue, I took photos both early in morning and near sunset in some of the photos. Makes one dreamy..even homesick for west coast. I think what might beat out the west coast, is higher probably of northern lights in some prairie night sky areas. However I’ll be lucky to see any soon..
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True enough Jean about the northern lights. I grew up in Saskatchewan and we saw them frequently on the farm.
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I am sooo envious. Do you have any photos in your blog?
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No unfortunately it was long ago.
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What a feast for the eyes. I heard about DC being truly gorgeous in the spring. I didn’t know that Vancouver was so amazing. Enjoy!
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Vancouver is warmer than Washington DC…at least at the bottom of the mountains. Hope Californian (?) springs are lovely where you are.
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Those are some stunning cherry blossoms and magnolias, Jean. Very crisp and clear and you have a thing for flower photography for the looks of it. i don’t know about you, but whenever I get too close to flowers in the spring time, my hayfever starts going off. From these photos, I’m guessing for you this is not the case.
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Ah, I’m sorry for your hayever symptoms since I know you do photography too! I am allergic to some sort of budding cottonwood tree (I don’t know precise tree type.) in spring on Vancouver Island. But that’s the only allergy I am aware of. Just luck, Mabel by shooting photos in early morning and at sunset. Easier to capture fragile transclucency of the lovely flowers.
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In Colorado we don’t have as many awesome blossoms as you do there, but my husband and I like to go for “blossom walks” this time of year and hunt down yards with trees that are blooming and just admire and smell them. Great pictures and post!
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Thx and good to see you drop by here, Trish. I suspect maybe Colorado might have drier soil/air, if you aren’t in more moist areas or maybe it’s just too dry when it gets hot in spring. For certain if you have scrub, semi-desert like vegetation, most likely there would less blossoming deciduous trees. Right now I’m in Alberta, the prairies and most definitely flowering trees are rarer. Well, trees in general just are not common except getting to the mountain foothills. Still that’s wilderness forests. Maybe one day you’ll get into British Columbia. 🙂
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Gorgeous! Thanks.
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🙂 For happy, relaxing thoughts when you do yoga, JB.
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Gorgeous, thanks for sharing. I love Japanese magnolia. They are so pretty. I’m glad that moving to Vancouver doesn’t mean having to let go of seeing all the flowers I loved in Kyoto. 🙂 And it seems like the weather is better in Vancouver during the spring than it is in Kyoto these days! (It’s rained or been ominously cloudy every day of cherry blossom season the last two years in Kyoto.)
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Many beautiful parks in Metro Vancouver to enjoy. Try Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver on north shore. Deep Cove (bus takes you there) is a neighbourhood at start of Indian Arm inlet…fijord like. there are hiking trails to walk overlooking the fjiord, etc. Lynn Valley Canyon Park, etc.
There are some long grey rainy days in Vancouver –especially in late fall and winter. But hopefully you’ve had some of that in Japan?
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Photos are gorgeous! Cherry blossoms are one of my favorite blooms. I plan to go to DC next year to see them.
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No doubt, that’s the next closest location to you, to see the cherry blossoms. I’ve been there about 20 years ago. It coincided with a conference.
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Blossom d’cherry
Oh the magnolia in bloom
Nice smell in my room!
Wow! Not only have your lovely photos somehow affected my olfactory glands, your charming haiku have brought out the poet in me– quite an achievement there, Jean!
Many thanks for this beautiful post– delightful. Hope you are well! : )
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Wow, your haiku on the fly, Mark! Cool. 🙂 Glad the flowers tickled your senses and poetic instincts. You probably could combine poetry and comics together very well.
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I love magnolias, so beautiful flowers! 🙂
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Hope you see them in your part of the world, Rockhopper!
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yes, every spring 🙂
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Beautiful poetry, beautiful flowers! It’s always been a dream of mine to check out the cherry blossums in Japan, we don’t really have them in Australia! Thank you for sharing!
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A beautiful time of year. Just missed the blooms in Feb when we were there due to cold and snow. Hope there will be some blooms in May when we come back.
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I would suggest going to Vancouver in Apr. for cherry blossoms. By May, they are gone.
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