Cotton Tree

The tree outside the window is blossoming. It started with a few bulbs - it seems longer - but only a few days ago. Those budding bulbs looked so hard and small, you’d expect them to be indifferent to the imperious climate, resistant to the luring rain. They were white, small and satin-seeming; I thought it was a cotton tree (木棉). But a day later they all changed, adding in number, growing in size, and it became clear that they were going to be full-crown flowers. Every time I looked out the window they had changed– a coup that staged its moves covertly and uniformly – and I reminded myself to write about it, about its white promise with a tint of yellow– or was it pale yellow I saw? But I forgot every time, and again they changed. Within a few hours there was no doubt: the bulbs were going to be yellow flowers, lemony yellow. With the discovery I relished the lost moments- very little mystery is left, is there? Well, until you catch yourself looking out the window again, you never know.