Redbuds in a gray wood.

Redbuds intrigue me. They are not red but ultraviolet, and they singe the gray branches and bark of the still unawakened sugar maples and black gums. They make the world around them black-and-white, and then it evaporates altogether into a blurred web of lines and spaces. They lean and brush the ground in their trailing length. They sigh and yawn and lie against stout magnolias. They glow and fade and make a neon imprint in a world without neon.

There is a redbud in front of the school, just in front of the principal's window. I pass it every day, and every day I am struck by its otherworldly purpleness, it's radiant, unavoidable beauty. I think every day how thankful I am that I recognize it. I wonder how many eyes fall on it without seeing it.