Unfolding Buds

This week, suddenly, Trashiyangtse trees are budding and blooming! It is a remarkable example of life imitating art.

The first text we studied in Class VII English was Unfolding Bud by Naoshi Koriyama. For days we read only the first stanza:

One is amazed
By a water-lily bud
Unfolding
With each passing day,
Taking on richer color
And new dimensions.

We discussed that an unfolding bud is a versatile symbol that could symbolize many different things. It is, we decided, a good metaphor for the school year which starts off so slowly here with half days and the tedious issuance of textbooks but gradually fills to a flowery flurry of activity. It is also a good metaphor for Class VII English students who begin curled up in shyness but gradually show you who they are.

We then decided to adopt the unfolding bud as a symbol of our character improving as we mature. The students did short presentations in which they mentioned two former defects in their personality that they have worked to overcome, two aspects of their present personality that they are proud of, and two virtues they hope to develop in the future:

For example:
My name is Kendra. I am an unfolding bud.

I used to be bossy and very messy.

Now I am creative and enthusiastic.

I want to be decisive and more at peace.

In the poem itself, the unfolding bud is used as a metaphor for, tres meta, poetry. The remaining stanzas read:

One is not amazed,
At a first glance,
By a poem,
Which is as tight-closed
As a tiny bud.

Yet one is surprised
To see the poem
Gradually unfolding,
Revealing its rich inner self
As one reads it
Again
And over again.

That was certainly our experience with Unfolding Bud. The more we worked with it, the more it opened up.