Cherry Joy

I love cherries. They are part of the berry family and as such, extraordinary in their beauty. Living in the middle of Washington cherry country, for decades I’ve watched the cherry branches cascade into blossoms, deflate into rest, develop tiny green fruit buds that swell and turn to rich red cherries, then clusters of cherries ready to be fresh picked.

In art, cherries depict carefree joy, exotic beauty, passion and romance, the partnership of two, and the spirit of a clustered triad. To me, CHERRIES ARE THE JAM. But I’m not alone in this. The following are just a few lovely CHERRY references to muse upon:

“There’s no use taking two bites of a cherry.”
- Ancient proverb

Life is a just of a bowl of cherries,
Don’t take it serious,
Life’s too mysterious...
Life is just a bowl of cherries,
So live and laugh and laugh, aha!
Laugh and love
Live and laugh,
Laugh and love.
Live and laugh at it all!
- Bob Fosse

“I want to do to you what spring does with the cherry trees.”
- Pablo Neruda

"You can’t pick cherries with your back to the tree.”
- JP Morgan

“Let’s get over ourselves, buy a cherry pie, and go fall in love with life.”
- Tom Robbins

“The greedy one gathered all the cherries, while the simply one tasted all the cherries in one.”
- Mark Nepo

During the 17th century, English cherry vendors would call out "cherry ripe" to alert potential buyers to the fruit. Thomas Campion refers to this practice in a poem: "There is a garden in her face... There cherries grow which none may buy/ Till 'Cherry ripe' themselves do cry."

“So we grew together like to a double cherry, seeming parted, but yet an union in partition, two lovely berries molded on one stem.”
- William Shakespeare