A country for old men

It surprises me how as you grow older and are placed amidst the right surroundings, the mind travels back to your childhood days.

Let me hasten to add that in no way am I confessing to senility. No Sir. Not yet anyway.

The country was so vastly and dramatically different when I was enjoying my single digit age.

For one, we were surrounded by nature. That means being in the company of butterflies as soon as one steps out of the house.

And behind our hovel of a home, fire flies in their scores lit up the bushes as day faded into night.

Oops. Let me not float away on a raft of nostalgia.

This particular fit of sentiment was triggered by my morning walks which I enjoy at least two to three times a week.

The difference now is that our new home, somewhere in Negri, nature is all around all times of the day and night.

In emphatic manner, if I may add.

And my delight in nature has taken on different dimensions. Age has its advantages, you know. There's this weed that looks remarkably like ‘lalang' but is not.

Its crowning glory is about 15cm long sitting on a thin green stalk of roughly 150cm in height.

When young, the plume could be mistaken for ‘lalang' flower but as the weed matures it takes on a light orange hue with a hint of green. The flowers look like half completed question marks or partially crooked forefingers.

Actually, before all these thoughts crowded into my mind, they were just weeds to the eye.Until one morning when sun, shadow and a rising breeze conspired to seduce my mind.

Five of the plants, bunched together, faced one single stalk separated by a space of about a meter.

There was something about the lone ranger which resonated within me. While the gang of five acted giddy headed waving about seemingly aimlessly, the ranger was nodding with snooty condescension.

Nature's gift

That's when I started paying close attention to this, what I now term as yet another gift from the bottomless bouquet of bountiful nature.

What's more, I took to them as personal friends.

I wasn't to know at that time that I was in for a sore bit of disappointment later on. Sorry for running ahead of myself.

Anyway after the initial introduction, the eyes became attuned to the patterns of highlights and shadows painted by the sun's rays.

At the eastern side of my walk - from the lip of the sharp incline below are banks upon banks of these weeds in S-shaped formation like a huge well fed anaconda.

In full bloom, they sway and nod as though dancing on the spot to some hidden music. I stopped. Watched in enchantment, feeling blessed at being witness to this show.

Having feasted my eyes, I strode on until I reached the dead-end and swung around to continue up the moderately steep incline. As I reached the slope's lip with eyes swiveling all the time, something made me turn around.

And my glance fell on a short row of the weeds with their elders providing the background wall.

At that precise moment a strong breeze kicked up, setting the plants a' dancing. The front row, to my blurred vision, appeared to be defying gravity as their heads did the hokey poky in mid-air with the sun's rays wrapping them in a golden glow.

As the days rolled on, nature had been in fact, gradually opening my eyes and ears to her enchantment.

Her special mode of education, being springing ambush after serendipitous ambush.

One such lesson was taking in sight and sound together.That discovery came with knowledge that the dancing weeds actually had a choral background.

Cicada chorus

This cicada chorus has a distinct character of its own. For instance, the insects are in full throat for a count of roughly 17.

A lull of a few seconds. And then a lone voice streams into the air. At certain level the voice appears to let off a plaintiff "tolong, tolong, ikut saya" cry.

The others then obviously touched by the plea join in with gusto. This appears to be a ritual of sorts as the whole affair is repeated in regular fashion.

The dancing weeds and the cicada chorus together form a magical combination with of course, the occasional cooing turtle dove, chattering magpie and other feathered friends providing the punctuating counter-points.

Visual displays accompanied by sense surround sound. Pretty marvelous don't you think?

And all for free.

One morning, the sun's shafts pierced the mist, back-lighting three of these weeds. I tell you, the horribly emaciated plants exuded such menace that I broke into silent laughter.

For one among looked strangely familiar as it projected the image of a gunfighter with stick-like fingers reaching for twin holsters.

In a flash the memory of the early days of President Bush's administration popped up. That's when TV cameras captured him walking away from the camera, shoulders hunched slightly with hand hovering over imaginary holsters fingers flicking restlessly as though itching for the real thing.

That itch went into Iraq to find expression and is stuck there - mission still to be accomplished albeit under a new president.

Which leads us to this quote published in a local newspaper some years back:

"As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."-H.L. Mencken (1880-1956).

Rather prophetic don't you think?

Back to then to the story. Often times when the wind is high, the weeds appear to stretch the necks paying rapt attention to some griping oratory.

Then a little whirlpool of a breeze turns a few of them into mischief makers as they do a little jig of their own quite against the general movement.

Menacing machines

Then one morning lost in the world of Queen Elizabeth 1, who, I firmly believe laid the foundation for the British Empire, a persistent grating, growling and familiar sound rudely broke my attention.

I put the book down. And knew the dreaded day had arrived.

The sound announced that the grim reapers in the form of grass cutters, masked, long sleeved, in wellington boots were going about leveling all tall vegetation, including my much beloved weeds.

I avoided my regular route for sometime and took the alternate ones I'm familiar with where the same plants also flourish. After a few days, curiosity drove me to return to my regular path.

Though I had resigned myself to disappointment, the sight still affected me. The landscape was amazingly clear and clean and right across to other roads and the rooftops of houses a short distance away were visible.

But, the entertainment, the opportunity for serendipity and for food for the imagination to soar had been destroyed. However, a few weeks later the shoots were pushing up and couple months after that the plants were showing off their orangery crowns again and dancing to the cicada symphony once more.

There's lesson here for us all -- resilience is the stuff of life. Having said that I must sadly add that there must come a time when an even more deadly enemy will head their way - construction equipment.

Not just nature, man too hates a vacuum. No landowner worth his salt would allow his plot to be vacant for far too long.

I do hope, though, its ages before houses start popping up and my weeds are restricted to a few spots and the cicadas migrate elsewhere.

If there's any elsewhere left for them, that is.