There are certain things that encapsulate the passing of each season, representing the change of time and crystallizing those moments in memory. Autumn foliage in the Appalachian mountains. Snow over the mountains of the North Island in New Zealand. The smell of cut grass will always remind me of childhood summers in humid North Carolina.
In Australia, it’s the utterly wondrous jacaranda blossoms.
These purple luminescent blooms quite literally glow as they burst into thousands of blooms. I was awestruck by them when I first witnessed their majestic royal entrance last spring, and this year has proved no different.
They are spectacular.
Something about this particular shade of purple allows the blooms to capture the light so that they glow radiantly until they fall to the ground, and even then sometimes after.
It’s hard to describe being so taken with a flower, but these blooms are the stuff that songs are written about, that poems are dedicated to. It’s such a privilege to witness the complete transformation of roads and parks. In September, Brisbane is bathed in luminescent purple.
The other day when I was biking to work I had a whimsical moment as a gust of wind blew several tentative blooms off an overhanging tree and they landed all around me as I passed by, baptizing me in the stunning color of springtime.
“Briefly, flung across the city,
purple paint splatters every which way
over dogs on footpath
carpet parks with purple trumpet flowers.
Clouded purple shockwaves
thunder over hillsides
dripping vast enamel dollops
onto sky and soil alike
washing watercolour forest
through the suburbs.
Purple paint brushes dawn
from rainbow’s melting pot
until another year just as surely
fades away to violet.”
-Brent Williamz
Life Upside Down 
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