The song of the breeze of the morning in a field peopled with fragrant flowers is one of the many delights in having life. And the song of the breeze is, to those who pause to listen, the voice of eternal wisdom. Listening to the morning breeze is for me an almost daily occupation from which I receive delicious rewards.
Here, now, surrounded by wealth, I pause from my listening to share a lesson I heard the breezes tell upon a fine morning in early summer some few brief seasons ago. This lesson, though grand in the way of men, is to the large movement of the universe simple and brief. The story is one you may hear upon any morning when the sun glows golden, when first it peeks over the horizon’s edge, when first the breezes throw off the little drops of midnight’s chilly dew to speak with a sweet serenity as if the only soul to hear were you.
I have seen each day my busy fellow mortals rushing upon their way, too concerned with the seeming necessary occupations of the day to pause and breathe in what the breezes have to say. So here I record this simple tale as it was sung to me, that you may, when in weariness reclined, take up this brief page to refresh your mind:
One morning, in pleasure and delight, I participated in a great promenade around the monument of cherry blossoms, and here the people smiled as on the clean bright Sunday of their lives, arm in arm, eye to eye, dreaming through the blossoms sweet, wholesome, lovely and nice. Each pointing to beauty this way and that, each proclaiming the perfect beauty to be where he stood, or what she saw, where they pointed, sighed and laughed. All was delight and perfect joy, and the doves cooed, and the butterflies flitted, and the sun spread her arms as with a warm affection.
Who could deny that beauty is good for the flesh, the mind, the soul, who could deny the love of God in a magnanimous universe. The occasional cry, the bumping of head on branches, a trampled petal and the screech of rolling gulls in battle over a hapless fish but served better to punctuate the good health and the goodwill we all wished.
Beyond the rosy blossom of cherries, beyond the granite obelisk I was vaguely aware of some mechanical force erecting dull blocks of boxes row upon row in plain ugliness. This one pain seemed to have a more profound effect than did the smell of the aromatic, rotten fish. But the tender breeze soon caressed my flesh with the loveliness of a beautifully sweet fragrance, pink, fresh, renewed in essence. Then, returned to my senses, I perceived the breeze to speak, thus:
“The rotten fish decays, the dull boxes crumble and wash away; malevolence cannot long live in a world where the obelisk holds its place, where the smiling cherry is brought forth from measured time along the coursing sweetness of a beautiful day.” This, I have heard the breezes say.
THE END
* * *
Each spring, Nature’s bloom, sweetness, delight, and the return to life, is celebrated in Washington, DC’s Cherry Blossom Festival. The Festival remembers the 1912 gift of Japanese cherry trees from Yukio Ozaki, mayor of Tokyo City. We in festival remember many things: Family, Friendship, Time’s passing. Most importantly, we remember to be grateful to the Founders, and to God for His many blessings. This year’s festival (2021) will be celebrated from March 20 though April 11.
“Of the Breezes” was composed some twenty-five years ago, kept, along with some hundred other essays, to employ when in need. Now we need. The seven-volume domestic architecture treatise, The Beautiful Home, in preparation these thirty-two years, is nearing completion as a useful, and, God willing, profitable e-commerce site … to launch this April 13, the anniversary of Thos. Jefferson’s birth (1743). Until site launch, you will be treated to sweetly breezy essays. Hope you enjoy.
