The Forsythia in Bloom

Suddenly in the early spring evening the forsythia bush is aflame with light, a monastery with hundreds of cells.

Throughout winter's darkness, these monks had gone to bed at the close of day, each having laid down his work or study, taken off his brown robe, and gone naked into his simple bed; and such is the seasonal penury of the holy men that no lamp or candle lit the way for themselves or for travelers who might have wandered there. On a February night, the monastery stood dark and abandoned-looking in the moonlight, and atop each slender tower is a Gothic cornice of buds silhouetted against the snow.

Now the edifice glows with thousands of yellow candles made of wax from drunken bees. The lights flicker in a breeze as the men roam the wood-lined halls and knock on the doors of their brethren, leaving the candles burning without a sense of shame, unremorseful in their pursuit of warmth and the touch of one another.