This photo was taken during the Cherry Blossom Festival on the National Mall. The blossoms are always depicted as soft, pink, and sweet. But I think there's an inherent intensity in the first blooms of spring. There are months and months of warmth ahead, but here these first blooms come in the first week of April. They bloom brightly, glow in the first spring rays, and burn out - just a blip, before most other plants have woken from winter.