A Red Tree

Nothing does a better job of impressing into human mind – the ephemeral nature of everything beautiful – than a leisurely bike ride through well-kept suburbs in the spring, especially when you do it one week apart. The shallow ease with which trees strip off their apparel is astounding. Week 1 = nude. Week 2 = white/ pink/ magenta. Week 3 = green. And then others take their place. It is almost as if there was a beauty pageant, with participants allowed to bask in the adulation of crowds by being able to flaunt their beauty at clock strikes separated by merciful, memory-diluting time. It reminds me I must take time to stroll by the lake soon, if only to once again experience the inebriating aroma of wild-flowers.


Something I have come to love here is perhaps an outcome of people in general having the leisure time and money, because I find it hard to accept that it’s due to base statistics, or (an even baser) inherent difference in dispositions. That thing is the possibility of finding some deliberate human effort at romance and magic ever so often. I mean what could be more tender than a wooden bench circling a cherry blossomed tree, or compete with the classiness of a wheel and axle bucket laden well or even something as small as a wind chime on a classy tree. Yes, I am a sucker for the illusion of magic.


Yet, yet… here steps in memory – the spoil-sport. Despite the almost painful intensity of pure beauty around me, I long to see a red tree.. Having come from the land of Sambal* soliloquies in february and Flame of the forest* frenzy in May… I know the magic of red trees. Tulips jus’ can’t compete.

So, friend, find me a red tree… and I shall trade the moment for a heartfelt smile.

May 1st, 2010.


*Sambal = Silk cotton giants aka Kapok
Flame of the forest = Poinciana (local urdu name Gulmohar)


And other memory-racking local trees are Palash (butea frondosa), Floss silk (local name Buddha), Jacaranda (local name gul-e-neelum)and many more...