Photographer Maria Robledo has a way with flower arranging, or perhaps we should say: off-the-cuff displays with whatever branch, sprig, flower or leaves her Brooklyn garden offers. Visiting one evening, we were stunned by the huge green vase that held a shallow pool of water into which she floated fallen blossoms.

It seems the perfect accompaniment to this 4-line gem of a poem written by Su Tung-p’o over a thousand years ago:

Pear blossoms pale white, willows deep green —
when willow fluff scatters, falling blossoms will fill the town.
Snowy boughs by the eastern palisade set me pondering —
in a lifetime how many springs do we see?

 

With spring full tilt, we gathering blossoms we found in the park to copy her brilliant idea…