On Saturday morning the light was shining and shifting through the trees and I grabbed my camera and ran outside in my pajamas, wearing whatever shoes I could find, which happened to be Josh’s sneakers. The weeping cherry tree was in full bloom and I knew I wanted to capture it’s fragile and fleeting beauty and had been waiting for the right light.
While processing the images a line crept into my head from one of Emily Dickinson’s poems. “A light exists in the spring . . .” I couldn’t remember the rest so I looked it up.
I decided the poem was the perfect accompaniment to these images. And besides, don’t we all need a little injection of poetry into daily life? Poetry of both the visual and the prose varieties?
A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
When March is scarcely here
A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.
It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.
Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay —
A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.
by Emily Dickinson
Do you have a favorite spring poem?
Lovely, Danielle! That is a great tree and your captures with that light are wonderful.
I was just marveling the other day how beautiful the color green is every April. I get so swept up in the pinks and whites as our neighborhood flowering trees bloom, and then all of a sudden BOOM–everything is green and I realize I’ve forgotten all over again how beautiful green is. By June or July (OK, let’s be honest–by mid-May) I will have forgotten again and all the green will be normal and unnoticed. But right now, it thrills me.
That is such a beautiful poem. I love Emily Dickinson’s way with words. 🙂 I’ve had that same experience of seeing something beautiful . .. a sunrise, an unusual cloud, and just wanting to rush outside to capture it!
gorgeous. love the light in those photos!