Everything is Melted in Green Breeze

Now, Nara Park is amid the whirlpool of lush verdure of young leaves. The sunlight goes through the fresh leaves and flickers them.

 Camphor trees are shedding old leaves and growing new ones.

 Fallen leaves look like beautiful autumn foliage. None of them has the same color or pattern. Look at green marble-like patterns, I won’t be tired of viewing them!. But most of people are just passing by them.

In the grounds of Kasuga Grand Shrine, there are many old and magnificent camphor trees. It is said that the trees have been considered as divine because of their mysterious smell.  In olden days, people used to make moth balls from camphor trees to protect clothes from moths.

Camphor tree (left big one), wild wisteria and deer

Wild wisteria flowers in sunset. Flowers in May are wisteria, and people enjoy wild wisteria as well as cultivated ones in the park. In the 8th century, the Fujiwaras were the  most powerful and rich clan.  Their favorite flowers were wisteria as Fujiwara means wisteria field.  That's why so many wisteria around Nara Park.

wisteria leaves

The maple leaves which are rimmed with faint red.
They look like open hands of babies.

A thatched house is surrounded with maple trees. It seems as if it were enveloped in green blazes.( related blog is here,Last Flicker of Subtle Beauty, Mizuya-chaya )

This Haiku was composed on the deadly catastrophe which hit Tohoku district on March 11^th. The poem was selected and appeared in Asahi Newspaper. Haiku is the shortest Japanese poem consisting of 5-7-5 syllables

ものの芽の 天地裂くとも 萌えいでよ　斉藤哲也

Buds,

Even though heaven and earth were split,

Sprout!

by Saito Tetsuya

Not only leaves but also grasses are gorgeous.

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Here, people come to enjoy doing nothing.

Deer in early sunset

In sunset

It is hard to introduce all of them. This beauty continues only for a while. The leaves soon grow strong and lose their shy softness and fragileness. I love their fleeting beauty. 

For your reference

Each season has each color. Based on Chinese faith, green or blue represents spring. In olden days, both green and blue were named blue in Japan. No wonder, spring is depicted as green(blue).

Blue or green, spring, 青春

Red, summer、朱夏

White, autumn、白秋

Black, winter、玄冬

Yellow, canicular days 土用

This time, I had hard time to post my blog because of Blogger's  system trouble. I struggled for a long time.  Did n't you have it?(^^;)

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