This time of year I am readily reminded of Houseman’s poem about the cherry, “loveliest of trees.” He describes a cherry tree in peak bloom as “hung with snow,” and laments that of his “three score years and ten twenty will not come again.” Anyone who has visited the Tidal Basin of our nation’s capital when our Japanese cherries are at peak bloom agrees with his sentiment. The trees do seem burdened down with plump snowflakes, and fifty years seems little time to enjoy them.

            I did not make it to the Tidal Basin this year, but have fully enjoyed my personal cherry tree. It stands outside my office window. The elders planted it for me in memory of my father, who passed in 2003.  He was not given his allotted three score and ten, nor was his father before him. The tree planted in his memory was in danger of an early death as well when it contracted a bacterial infection a few years ago. David Bobbitt, a degreed horticulturist, told me he could save the tree if I trusted him. He cut the tree back so far that nearly half the trunk was gone, and only one branch with one leaf remained. I brought a red Christmas ball from home and hung it on that branch, since it reminded me of the tree Charlie Brown bought at the Christmas tree lot. David was right. He did save the tree. It is magnificent, and has been for several springs. The gnarled trunk enhances the beauty of the blossoms as it stands handsomely outside my window.

            Today, as I write these few lines, I can look through the faintly pink snowflakes and see a regally posed cardinal. He moves very little. He seems to be regarding me as carefully as I regard him, but I know he isn’t looking at me at all. He is seeing his own reflection in the glass. Last year the mockingbird that lives on our property caught his reflection in the same window and did a war dance against himself for hours. Sir Cardinal is calmly standing his ground (or holding his tree), and poses for almost an hour before changing branches with great pomp, and striking another, equally regal pose.

            While all this is going on a squirrel starts up the tree then decides it is too much work.  This squirrel had pilfered my birdseed all winter and is fat enough to be on one of those TV weight loss shows. I have named him Orson Welles. Bumble bees of commensurate size float slowly like swollen dirigibles, lazily lapping nectar from the pink-blush blossoms.

            My mind moves from Houseman to Hopkins and his poem, Pied Beauty. It is a psalm of praise to God for the beauty of nature. “Glory be to God for dappled things,” it begins, and goes on to mention the “rose moles” of trout, “finches’ wings,” and the “gear, tackle and trim” of tradesmen. He praises all things “counter, original, spare, and strange,” and ends his poem “praise Him.” I have taken “counter,” “original,” and “spare” as the keys to a good sermon (I try to leave out “strange”).

            King David tells us that the created universe declares the glory of God (Psalms 8 and 19), and James tells us that everything good and perfect is a gift from the Father above (James 1.17). My cherry tree, with its blush blossoms, its regal redbird, its bobbing bumblebees, its background of blue sky, its grounding in green grass declares the same. Elliot calls April “the cruelest month.” Looking out my window I reject this.  I cannot help but agree with Houseman, Hopkins, David and James.

            And so to their quartet I add my bass and sing, “Praise God.”