The National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. is in progress - March 18 - April 16. Tomorrow is the opening ceremony co-presented with the Japan Foundation. After watching a video of the hoopla surrounding past opening ceremonies I can tell you I wouldn't want to be there during that - too many people; too much noise.
But I always thought it would be lovely to be there when all the cherry blossoms were at their peak. I had seen many pictures like the one above where the Jefferson Memorial was featured in the background with the trees in the foreground. The closest I ever came was in late April, 1975. The blossoms were spent but petals still littered the walkway. I stood on what has always seemed to me the west side, but is acutally more southeasterly, and gazed at what I think is the most beautiful of the presidents' memorials. I was in awe that I was acutally there and had the place almost entirely to myself. The last time I stood there and looked across the Tidal Basin was in the fall of 2008; no cherry blossoms, but it was still awesome.
A Shropshire Lad 2: Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
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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