To everything there is a Season.
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring.
A time to be born.
A time of juice and Joy.
A strain of Earth’s sweet being in the beginning.
A time to laugh and dance.
A time to embrace and love.
A time to rejoice and do good.
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To everything there is a Season.
Spring is a conflagration of green fires – a blaze of growing.
The bull-frogs are sounding!
The Swifts are back!
Embed from Getty ImagesAll things flash and flare!
Scimitar upsweep.
Fireflies ascending.
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Time to throw open the doors and windows.
Go wherever your boot heels are ready to wander.
The Earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.
Hearts run over.
Run over with dateless expectancy, tongueless promise, indefinable desire.
Something gathers.
Gathers in the throat.
In the chest.
Something blinds the eyes.
The air is so clear and transparent you feel you might actually see the whole universe from end to end.
Embed from Getty ImagesThere is a spirit of Youth in everything.
Everything.
May Violets.
Rough winds shaking the darling buds.
Buttercups unfold – glittering stars.
Something is being said.
Being said.
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
TIme to sing on wanton wing.
Believe in perpetual Spring.
Have faith there is a leaf to cure every hurt.
One good thing about this world – there are always sure to be more Springs.
More Springs.
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Cherry Blossom in the air.
Cherry Blossom on the street.
Cherry Blossom in your hair.
And a Blossom at your feet.
Let me tell you about the Cherry Trees.
They put on the most outrageous clothes.
They sing and dance around.
They seem to be saying :
You know we’ve travelled all around the Sun.
You know it’s taken us one whole year.
Well done everyone, Well Done.
Well Done!
Well Done!
This Post for Lilian Smith.
Lilian hosts the 6am to 8am Irish RTE Radio Show, ‘Weekend on One’ on Saturdays and Sundays.
Whether you listen in real time or later on line you will be rewarded by music chosen with intelligence and insight which will offer surprises, introductions and cherished memories.
Notes :
John Spillane who wrote, ‘Dance of The Cherry Trees’ is a songwriter who has mastered the very difficult art of saying truthful, complex things, with simplicity.
His songs both sensitive and steel strong arrest and hold the imagination.
John sings his songs with open hearted candour and fearlessness.
There is beauty, awe, humour and wonder in John’s songs.
He is Irish, a Cork native, who has the song of the River Lee in his soul.
Do yourself a favour and seek out his work.
Recommended Records :
The obvious starting point to explore John’s wonderful song catalogue is the compilation, ‘So Far So Good, Like’.
As for individual albums my favourites are:
‘All the Ways you Wander’ – a luminous acoustic collection.
‘Life In An Irish Town’ – Illuminating insights into life beyond the urban bubble.
‘My Dark Rosalien and the Island Of Dreams’ – heartfelt meditations on Ireland.
The more adventurous will also relish John’s Irish language records including the wonderful, ‘Irish Songs We Learned At School’
Before launching his solo career John was in a very fine group, ‘Nomos’. Their second CD, ‘Set You Free’ Features several excellent Spillane songs as well as superb instrumental playing.
You can learn more about John’s history and catalogue at
Thanks to :
Rainer Maria Rilke, Wendy Cope, L M Montgomery, Elizabeth Bishop, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ecclesiastes, D H Lawrence, Delmore Schwartz, Anne Stevenson, Thomas Wolfe, Anton Chekhov, Billy Collins, Philip Larkin, Amy Gerstler, Robert Burns, John Clare and Wild Bill Shakespeare for the open hearts, the poetry and the inspiration.
The Immortal Jukebox 
Nice post!
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Thanks very much.
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Thanks for the tip. Guys like this are more Rod Mckuen than guitarist. Storytellers. In one of the few venues where a minstrels ryhme is fine. Truth be told like Dylan or Mckuen, I’d almost rather read it, absorb it, let the lines unfold. As for the cherry trees, I feel the same for crepe myrtles when they snow in color and float on the lightest breeze and let us know we too, indeed, made it around the sun again. Well done.
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A most unusual and utterly charming song Thom, as light as the cherry blossom itself. I’ll always be thinking of John’s sentiment (and yours) ‘Well Done!’ whenever that new spring blooms. Great word-poem culled from the cherrytree writers!
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Thanks Ian. Another secret hero! Glad I’ve fixed that phrase in your mind .. so uplifting and properly grateful sentiment. Thom.
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