The Cherry Blossom Tree

Recently, I had to write a sonnet for Honors European Literature. It took a lot of effort, but I thought it turned out not terrible. I based it off the life of a kamikaze pilot...so it's a bit depressing >.> 

The Cherry Blossom Tree

Beneath the fragrant cherry blossom tree,

Two callow lovers make a tender vow

For love! For timelessness! For destiny!

Quixotic visions capture them, for now.

But soon the heartless fates blow mirthful wind

That scatters clouds of petals swirling down.

He leaves to war, departing with a grin

And her sakura branch to battle grounds.

For him, she waits for days and months and years

In hopes that he’ll arrive each coming spring

As flowers do; But he has disappeared.

And so she sits beneath the tree, crying.

Because she knows his fleeting promises

Have blossomed into tragic emptiness.

Traditionally, in Japan cherry blossoms were regarded as symbols of beauty, love, feminity, brevity, and some other stuff. But in World War II, Japan used cherry blossoms as a symbol for their kamikaze pilots. It emphasized the brevity of life, and pilots were compared to the petals that fell to the ground. I think it was said that the kamikaze pilots that died in war would be reincarnated into cherry blossoms (which doesn't sound great to me, but who knows). Some pilots brought sakura branches from loved ones to their suicide missions, and others wrote many poems about them. Many of the pilots were educated students that had prospective lives in front of them, so they were pretty good at pondering life and writing depressing literature.

Anyways...yay history!I should probably write more because I'm really terrible at writing....sooo