Other Nature Writing

I went to the Botanic Gardens today. My friend, do go there one day too, okay? I tried to take in as much as I could and put it down on paper, because I am stubborn and I want to preserve what is transient. Listen.

First I sit down on the glossy green grass / boring brown leaf litter. Then a peacock pansy flutters by, and I frown. What are you doing here? You do not fit into this picture, your pale sunshiny wings are far too bright in this sea of death. Go find a pretty pink flower, do not come near. But it settles down—ignorant to my wide-eyed gawking—softly on the rough tree bark, pausing to wonder at the lime-green mould and jagged splinters. I slap myself. Why did I ever think that all butterflies do is roam among flowers and live to eat? So do they also love to take a little excursion to see the other side of the world, just like me.

Then a cry fills the air, and my head jerks in the direction where it has erupted from...there, there where the dense canopy in the centre of the lawn lies. It is a mighty dense bush; a bush that is the coalescence of multiple broad-leaved trees; a bush that only seems to grow denser, fiercer and more introverted with the passing of time; a bush that belies the rich plethora of life beneath. If you want to hear more unspoken secrets, my friend, you have to come and sit in silence with me.

So I close my eyes. In the silence I hear voices in the canopy come and go. Are the trees finally opening up and talking? I hear voices; they come to surprise, they come to scare; they come in sweet, silky whistles, they come in raspy cock-a-doodle-doos. (I heard one that sounded like a fire alarm, and I contemplated whether to include it here, because its evocation of emergency does not fit too well in such a scene of tranquility. But it happened, and I must be honest, so I shall put it down too, and perhaps assert that its fiery threat was simply subsumed.)

Now, in the distance, if you look carefully enough, you'll realise that rolling down the coconut tree are not coconuts but two squirrels chasing each other. Oh down the coconut tree they go: down, down, down... until one dropped and hit the ground! My heart lurches forward. Do you need CPR? Do you need to go to the A and E? They cackle and launch into chase again, merciless, relentless—see in one fluid motion, the squirrels shoot up the tree again. They are mad, my friend. I had no time to blink. No sooner had a sharp gasp escaped my mouth than a soft laughter of relief.

Finally, I see both my future and past selves in the young mother and her little daughter. It is a scene of briefest beauty: they blow bubbles and watch them wash in the wind. So does the little girl totter along to the rhythm of nature; her tinkling laughter nothing but music to my ears. Then, as if by some connection we had all along, she sends one bubble lumbering towards me. In it I see the fullness of life. It pulls all the varying shapes and heights of the landscape into a rounded sphere; it paints everything green into a glorious rainbow. A perfect iridescent globe; beauty of the world encapsulated; best of nature compressed.

Why does this plain sight astound me greatly? Do you see what I see?

Multiple trunks of the Tamarind tree twist around each other as they clamour to the top; their ageing skin fraying in parallel lines to reveal shades of brownish white beneath. Those leaves, soft and springy, dapple in the air like a paintbrush painting the sky for the first time. Outwards those branches go branching in every direction; this tree is unafraid to assert itself and unafraid to take up space.

I want to fearlessly take up space.

Crowning the Tamarind’s roots are smaller, more compact Geiger trees that are less daring. They have broad leaves that clutter close together on a narrow stem; that stack on top of each other with little breathing space. Extra leaves, accidentally grown, are not welcomed. Besides them, tiny pear-shaped seeds and a bunch of orange flowers also cluster tightly around a single point; as though the mother leaf had fearfully yanked all its children inwards, chastising them for the audacity to stretch their necks so far away from home.

I want to run away.

In my rapidly changing landscape and rapidly displaced sense of place I realise I am trying to salvage what little nature there’s left in my environment, because how quickly they erode into the margins... Tucked away by the side of the concrete pavement, these trees had so long been just part of the landscape, on that grass patch yonder. And my heart grapples between the diametric feelings of gratitude and longing, just like the incongruence of that small, satisfied tree and that tall, eager one yearning for more.

and more to come!