On a ride through the woods after Easter Sunday, the speaker observes a cherry tree with its white blossoms. Noting that he is twenty years old, he estimates that about fifty years of his life remain. A half-century is not really a long time, he says. Consequently, he will make the most of the rest of his life, he says, by observing the cherry tree in winter--when snow clings to its boughs--as well as spring.