"The Flowering Crabapple" (Text & Image Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)
“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” ~Henri Matisse
This morning the flowering crabapple outside the wee cottage in the woods has become a hymn to spring.
Its blossoms—soft fuchsia, rose, and pale pink touched by morning sunlight—seem almost too beautiful to belong entirely to this world. For a brief while each year, the tree transforms itself into living poetry. It does not bloom timidly. It arrives all at once, like joy remembered. Like hope returning.
I sit quietly with my steaming mug of coffee cupped between my hands while sunlight spills through the windows in long golden ribbons. Outside, the fountain burbles its gentle music into the warming air. A cardinal sings somewhere nearby with bright, insistent happiness. Overhead, a flock of Canadian geese crosses the blue morning sky, their ancient voices echoing above the treetops like travelers announcing the turning of another season.
And beneath it all, Hania Rani’s There Will Be Hope drifts softly through the cottage—piano notes so delicate they feel less like music and more like breathing.
The flowering crabapple glows in the yard.
There is something almost mystical about apple trees. The old Celts believed them sacred, gateways between worlds. Avalon itself was said to be the Isle of Apples—a place of healing, rest, and renewal. In old English folklore, villagers once sang to the Apple Tree Man beneath winter branches, asking for blessing, abundance, and protection from darkness. Even now, standing before a flowering crabapple on a spring morning, one can understand why our ancestors saw magic there.
The tree feels ancient in its wisdom.
For most of the year it simply waits.
It survives snowstorms, cold rains, harsh winds, pruning shears, and long winter nights. Its branches become dark silhouettes against gray skies. Yet it never truly surrenders to winter. Somewhere deep within its rough bark and twisting limbs, life quietly remains. Hidden. Patient. Certain.
And then one morning in May, it awakens.
Not cautiously—but gloriously.
The blossoms appear like a cloud of fragrance and color, so abundant they seem to float in the air itself. Soon petals will drift downward like pink snow across the grass. The bloom will not last long. Perhaps that is part of its beauty. The flowering crabapple reminds us that some of life’s most sacred moments are also the most fleeting.
A sunrise.
A song.
A kiss.
A season.
A beloved voice now gone quiet except in memory.
And yet fleeting does not mean insignificant. Sometimes it is precisely because a thing does not last forever that it becomes precious.
Perhaps this is one of the quiet lessons the crabapple tree offers us each spring: bloom anyway.
Bloom after difficult winters.
Bloom after heartbreak.
Bloom after loss.
Bloom despite the storms endured.
Offer beauty to the world while you can.
And perhaps another lesson too: that resilience need not be harsh or loud. The crabapple does not fight the world with anger. It answers coldness with blossoms. It answers darkness with color. It answers passing time with grace.
This morning, as sunlight warms the cottage and the fragrance of coffee mingles with spring air drifting through the open French door, I find myself profoundly grateful for this small tree standing in the yard. Year after year it returns—not merely surviving, but transforming survival into beauty.
Maybe we are meant to do the same.
So I take another sip of coffee and listen to the geese fading into the northern sky. The fountain continues its gentle conversation with the morning. The cardinal sings again. The flowering crabapple trembles softly in the breeze like a living blessing.
And so this new day starts.
~Wylddane
This morning the flowering crabapple outside the wee cottage in the woods has become a hymn to spring.
Its blossoms—soft fuchsia, rose, and pale pink touched by morning sunlight—seem almost too beautiful to belong entirely to this world. For a brief while each year, the tree transforms itself into living poetry. It does not bloom timidly. It arrives all at once, like joy remembered. Like hope returning.
I sit quietly with my steaming mug of coffee cupped between my hands while sunlight spills through the windows in long golden ribbons. Outside, the fountain burbles its gentle music into the warming air. A cardinal sings somewhere nearby with bright, insistent happiness. Overhead, a flock of Canadian geese crosses the blue morning sky, their ancient voices echoing above the treetops like travelers announcing the turning of another season.
And beneath it all, Hania Rani’s There Will Be Hope drifts softly through the cottage—piano notes so delicate they feel less like music and more like breathing.
The flowering crabapple glows in the yard.
There is something almost mystical about apple trees. The old Celts believed them sacred, gateways between worlds. Avalon itself was said to be the Isle of Apples—a place of healing, rest, and renewal. In old English folklore, villagers once sang to the Apple Tree Man beneath winter branches, asking for blessing, abundance, and protection from darkness. Even now, standing before a flowering crabapple on a spring morning, one can understand why our ancestors saw magic there.
The tree feels ancient in its wisdom.
For most of the year it simply waits.
It survives snowstorms, cold rains, harsh winds, pruning shears, and long winter nights. Its branches become dark silhouettes against gray skies. Yet it never truly surrenders to winter. Somewhere deep within its rough bark and twisting limbs, life quietly remains. Hidden. Patient. Certain.
And then one morning in May, it awakens.
Not cautiously—but gloriously.
The blossoms appear like a cloud of fragrance and color, so abundant they seem to float in the air itself. Soon petals will drift downward like pink snow across the grass. The bloom will not last long. Perhaps that is part of its beauty. The flowering crabapple reminds us that some of life’s most sacred moments are also the most fleeting.
A sunrise.
A song.
A kiss.
A season.
A beloved voice now gone quiet except in memory.
And yet fleeting does not mean insignificant. Sometimes it is precisely because a thing does not last forever that it becomes precious.
Perhaps this is one of the quiet lessons the crabapple tree offers us each spring: bloom anyway.
Bloom after difficult winters.
Bloom after heartbreak.
Bloom after loss.
Bloom despite the storms endured.
Offer beauty to the world while you can.
And perhaps another lesson too: that resilience need not be harsh or loud. The crabapple does not fight the world with anger. It answers coldness with blossoms. It answers darkness with color. It answers passing time with grace.
This morning, as sunlight warms the cottage and the fragrance of coffee mingles with spring air drifting through the open French door, I find myself profoundly grateful for this small tree standing in the yard. Year after year it returns—not merely surviving, but transforming survival into beauty.
Maybe we are meant to do the same.
So I take another sip of coffee and listen to the geese fading into the northern sky. The fountain continues its gentle conversation with the morning. The cardinal sings again. The flowering crabapple trembles softly in the breeze like a living blessing.
And so this new day starts.
~Wylddane
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