The unforgettable hues of the jacaranda blossom
Why do I always forget?
Every April
when the jacaranda blossom
suddenly appears
I am taken by surprise
Every year
the blossoms appear
Not one by one
Not from slowly opening buds
Not creeping slowly
Nor even patch by patch in the trees.
But one day
I wake up
look to the skies
and there they are.
Bright lilac coloured trees
have taken over the city
while I slept.
And I didn’t even see them
on their way.
They make the dusty city smile
with bright
incongruous
natural colour
everywhere
for several weeks.
Until slowly
one by one
the petals fall
forming a thick carpet
making the pavements bright
holding their colour
for as long as they can.
Fading only
little by little
like my memory.
They disappear eventually.
From view.
From my mind.
For another year.
Feisty Blue Gecko - a tail of the unexpected 
That’s beautiful, and evocative. Strange that we can forget things like this, but maybe comforting too, that we are better at living in the present than we think.
Thanks J – I wrote this in Kathmandu in 2005 – and when I saw the jacaranda spring into action the other day here in Yangon, it brought it all flooding back! The forgetting as well as the remembering!
Sometimes the simplest things bring the most unexpected pleasure. Lovely poem/post.
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