Hanami (花見, flower viewing)

Emblematic of the beauty in life’s ephemerality— sakura emerge in a cloud-like nature, en masse for only one to two weeks, before being whisked away by the wind, and falling to the ground.

In Japanese, (花, hana) in this case, most often refers to cherry blossoms (桜, sakura), Japan’s national flower.

The ones in Central Park are Yoshino Cherries (染井吉野, Somei Yoshino)— gifted to the US from Japan as a symbol of friendship in 1912, along with the ones more famously planted in Washington, D.C.’s Tidal Basin.