Walking by a thing for many years without noticing it is embarrassing when it’s your job to notice things, but it’s even more so when the thing is shaped like crosshairs on a bullseye.
Yesterday, I finally hit the target, and at just the right time. Drawn by a distant pop of pink behind 46 Hillhouse Avenue, an annex of Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, I was surprised to find a formal garden of short hedges and paths laid in squared-off quadrants around a central circle. Dual-tone daffodils sprang up in patches, and the forest green of the hedges was heavily marbled with autumnal oranges and browns. On the other side of a taller hedge was the source of the pink: a row of cherry blossom trees, each clutching her blooms like purses against the snatching winds of an irritable sky.
Petal by petal, they were snatched away anyway. In flutters and fits, including one breathtaking blizzard, shredded pink confetti whizzed across the knot garden, catching in edges or, like prizewinning paper airplanes, flying dozens of improbable yards toward Hillhouse Avenue. Meantime, a plump bumblebee climbed bending boughs of battered blooms like Stallone in Cliffhanger, getting to the blossoms while the getting was still good.
And with gusts of wind up to 40 miles per hour predicted for today, anyone interested in seeing the show for themselves should do the same.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
