blossoms, seeds, and shadows

I think this is a small shrubby redbud tree. not sure though.

it has a neighbor along our walking trail. the two trees are more like bushes, really, reaching not too far above my waist, spindly branches bent toward the road.

some months ago this spring, both trees burst into blossom--crowded little pink frothy blossoms all over--even though so many dried out seed pods still clung to all the branches.

it seemed like such a metaphor. 

last year's efforts, thin and pointless, weighing down the future. new life and color pushing onwards anyway. old baggage, getting in the way of everything you might want to blossom into.

by the time I took this photo, the pink flowery frills had wilted and shriveled quite a bit. the desert sun has taken no vacations this season. but there are still rows of orange seed pods holding fast, refusing to be blown away.

a tree, its seeds, its blossoms, all live in cycles just like everything and everyone else. times for growing and times for resting. times for bare bark, times for buds and leaves and blossoms. but all the parts of that cycle have residue from the others. none of them gets to be a clean slate starting from scratch. dried out seed pods, failures, sadness, winter cold, autumn loss-- all of it gets wrapped into the things that happen next. 

maybe sometimes it feels like so much heaviness to keep hold of, to keep track of. 

maybe it's simple. flowers leave behind seeds, and not all of those seeds go off to grow into anything.

the metaphor is very flawed, of course. the seeds are not the opposite of progress and beauty. just because convention paints pink flowers as more lovely does not mean that's truth.

I'm reminded of the best song from Encanto. things don't need to be perfect; they just need to be. 

that's enough for the scrubby redbud trees, I guess. simply being. why do humans complicate it so?