It is 7:30 pm as I write this.  I am on the second floor in the front of our house, and outside the bedroom window, the setting sun makes the leaves of the hawthorn tree glow.  Actually, to be more precise, it’s the leaves of the wisteria that glow from the sun – the wisteria that we planted in our yard that has now climbed up into the hawthorn 30 feet above the sidewalk.  It would climb higher if it could have.  It’s a tenacious plant.  When it flowers, it creates a cascade of white that makes me think of tossed rice falling at a wedding.  Lovely as it is, it will kill the hawthorn over time if we don’t intervene.

There is a metaphor there waiting to be found, but all I can make of it is cliches.