I don't know about other parts of Japan, but they haven't bloomed here yet. A little late this year. But I expect them very soon. That in mind, last night I wrote:

fragrance of ume blossoms
drifting through my mind
spring is coming

^{Ume Estate, Kameido - by Hiroshige}

I actually posted that on Threads when I wrote it. Here's the post. If you haven't heard the news, Project Blank is finally finished: Twitter on Hive is here! Go check it out, tweet poetry. If you missed it, read my post about the news.

I threaded a few others, trading threads with @riverflows a few times. That was fun. @boxcarblue joined in and gave a few, as did @cliffagreen. Threads is going to make a great practice space for us. Go ahead and write. If it's not so good, who cares. Just write. It's all in good fun and it's good practice too. But if the poem you write is good, well there you go. As Threads grows more popular you may get more feedback and get it quicker which will tell you how good what you wrote was, but even without that feedback just the act of practicing a lot will help you improve. Go give it a try.

Ume Blossoms, I should mention are a sign spring is here or soon will be. Sometimes ume is translated as "plum" or "apricot", but it's really it's own thing so I usually keep it as ume. The typically start to bloom when it's still cold but they tell us warm weather is coming soon. They are a bit smaller than cherry blossoms and carry a much stronger (and sweeter) fragrance. This fragrance attracts many birds, the most popular being the mejiro, the Japanese white-eye, a beautiful greenish-yellow small bird. Due to that I am always seeing bird-photographers watching for mejiro when the ume blossoms start to appear.

^{Persimmon and Mejiro - by Ide Gakusui}

At one time they were the preferred favorite flower in Japan. They still are in China. I was thinking about them and wondering when they will get here this year when I wrote the above. I could almost smell them in my head.

I wasn't thinking of it at the time, but looking at it now I am reminded of this famous haiku from Ransetsu:

梅一輪いちりんほどの暖かさ
ume ichirin ichirin hodo no atatakasa

one ume blossom
means one step closer
to warmth

Interestingly, they are also thought to protect against evil. As such, traditionally they would be planted in the northeast corner of a yard, which is the direction evil is said to come from. I don't know if that has any relationship to the superstition that you should never sleep with your head pointed north—only dead people are oriented to point north. Anyway, even today at more traditional houses that have enough land around them you will often see an ume tree in the northeast.

Almost spring. Almost almost!

One last reminder about Threads. Go give it a try. Write poetry and use the hashtag #bcpoets. I will upvote you if I see it. Come practice with all of us and have fun. I will try to throw up a haiku or two everyday. Most probably won't be much good, but that's ok. It's the writing that counts. Write enough of them and a gem might appear.

But you don't have to write haiku. Any short poem works. Threads gives us 240 characters to play with, so use them all. See you there!

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.