On my way to the city, I notice a dusting of blossom from the train window. Blackthorn bushes cloud the embankments and cluster around the railway bridges, thin branches scrappy and unruly, flowers shining pure white in the sun.
Later, I walk through London at dusk. The taxis have their lights on, there’s a happy hum from the pubs and passers-by wear spring coats with thick scarves in the crepuscular half-light. Marylebone’s streets are lined with neatly spaced white blossom trees, branches perfectly pruned. They are Pyrus (a kind of pear) — I look them up later on London’s online Tree Map. Unlike the haphazard blooms of the hedgerow which find their way unbidden into sunny spaces, the locations of these city trees are intentional: they have been carefully recorded and photographed, each marked on the map by a green dot.
Stiffly vertical and thick with white, the blossom trees point upwards. Like Plath’s yew, the trees guide my eyes to the sky where I find the emergent moon, waxing gibbous against deepening blue. White blooms whisper to white moon and the moon whispers back. Below it, the spark of Jupiter begins to glitter.
I turn down a side street lit with a zigzag string of festoon lights and a lady passes me carrying a rainbow sequin bag that twinkles under the bulbs. A girl whizzes by on a hired green bicycle, hair streaming behind her, the bicycle’s single white headlight gleaming like a little full moon. I stop in front of a bookshop that glows from within, sending warm light out into the evening. I push open the door and step inside.
Here’s what I’ve been reading and loving this month:
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