“Meetings with Remarkable Trees”

It’s been the kind of night-into-day that one does not like to remember. The high point was listening to an angel singing, the low, staring at a depressing movie at 4:30 a.m. with the sound off while scrawling notes to myself in the dark.

The evening has rounded it all off nicely, with a viewing of a BBC show called “Meetings with Remarkable Trees.” The title alone should win awards.

The “Handkerchief Tree” somewhere near Belfast was the focus of the love-song in this episode. A gardener with a long, white beard spoke of his romantic love, this tree, and its four-day bloom period in May that brings all the Irish ladies to gather beneath its branches, chattering away about the “latest bargains” they got that day while admiring the white, handkerchief-like leaves that blossom during these few days a year.

At night, the moonlight illuminates the wide sheaths, hopefully attracting bugs to their cores, where flower are hidden. On a moonless night, it seems there is no luck for the Handkerchief Tree. I guess I can hope that those four blooming days a year are during a full period of the moon.

One would not wish to show all one’s glory only to be under-illuminated, attracting too few bugs.