I count fifteen palms towering above the pool. They lingered in my mind after our last meeting, but my memories were vague, general. Now I’m interested in their specifics. I photograph them, sunlight glowing on their fronds. The light imparts a liquid sheen. Their heads are so green against the blue sky, so alive in the dry heat.
There is a glamour about them. Some lean, others have a squiggle in their long trunk, many have a shaggy bark collar. All sport a mane of dry, brittle, golden fronds just below the green. Some of this gold is mixed amid the green like highlights. They seem to come alive under my attention. I’m certain they can feel my interest, my admiration.
Their personalities become more apparent. They are fifteen, but each is a unique survivor bearing the marks of their singular struggle to live. The straight and stately, the bent and quirky, the sweetly nodding. Two have their heads leaned conspiratorially together. Shy, whispering twins with a special affinity for each other. The three-story ring of buildings around them explains the tactics they’ve employed to reach the sun, tactics that formed the shapes of their bodies.
It’s material proof that the way a creature does a thing has a real, lasting physiological impact. We are all sun eaters on this planet, but the method matters.
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