A. E. Housman's famous poem about the cherry tree and mortality from A Shropshire Lad has always resonated strongly with me. Each year I marvel at the loveliness of the wild flowers and each year I wonder how many more springs I will view this loveliness. There is nothing morbid about this, just a greater and greater appreciation and awe for the perfection of the moment. Here is the poem in which Housman talks about twenty of his expected life expectation of seventy years having gone. By his measure I am minus one! Definitely no complaints from me! My time has run out so I am so lucky to see the miracle of spring again.
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
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