Spring flowers in autumn

There are some crabapple trees alongside the short walkway that runs from the building where I work to the parking garage. They bloom beautifully in the spring and are covered with red fruit in the fall. Whoever picked them as a landscaping feature made a good choice.

One of the trees isn't doing as well as the others and this year it seemed to get picked on by tent caterpillars, too. As I was walking to the office the other day, I noticed that it had put out one small burst of flowers among the red crabapples and the withered leaves. To me, there was something in that. You could consider it to be valiantly brave to be blooming as winter approaches or maybe just foolishly desperate to be taking one pointless last stab at flowering when there's no hope of bearing fruit.

Those little flowers have lasted for several days so far and I'm struck by them each time I pass by. Just this morning I began to wonder why they seem so significant to me. Something else to think about.