Burning Bush

Isn't this a beauty?

It's on my neighborhood exercise route.

We've had a freeze, wind, and a deluge of rain since I took this picture several weeks ago.

So this look is no more for now.

But there's something I really like about Bradford Pears. They are the last colors to go in the fall

and the first to arrive in the spring

(stinky blooms but beautiful). 

For me the B. Pear is a standing symbol of hope--it shows its colors when all other trees' leaves have disappeared, and it busts out in springtime bloom when everything else is still shivering. No matter how disagreeable, dismal, and dank the fall and winter can be, the Bradford will offer a vibrant show at the end of autumn, a latent hope in the winter, and an early fulfilled promise of white, willowy blooms 
at the first of spring.

With the weather turning wet, cold, and unrelenting here in my neck of the woods, 

my little Bradford Pear picture

snapped with my cell phone

gives me encouragement

(along with the company of my toasty warm cat

sleeping over the heat vent on the floor)

as the wind blows outside my window.