This Is Enough
How interesting those trees are, aren't they? With leaves and flowers of a hundred different shades. Light, dark, big, small, soft, spikey… Some grow tall and headstrong, pushing back the others whilst some crouch back obscure, grovelling behind boughs. New ones sprout, old ones fall, but in the end they all become part of the same deep mass of dead leaves awaiting slaughter under somebody's feet. Interesting, verily. I relish the delight of observing these wonders that unfold before me. The sleight when dawn breaks lobbing the first rays of magical colours, wafting the fragrance of damp earth, arousing the stout, speckled rooster which yowls aloud, bestirring the diligent peasants and beauteous milkmaids who tie their tresses up in a bun, most certain that they shall soon be drenched with diamonds of sweat. Anon shifts the sky from orange to yellow, to white, to golden, bathing the auburn fields which shimmer and gyrate frenetically to the melodies of mottled thrushes that compete with the finches. I strive to imitate them, listen to them closely and attempt to do the same in my oud, but must I say in solemn civility that it has been nine years and I have only failed to reach their perfection.
Butterflies flutter and fly into the city bustle where little boys roam about, uncouth and unkempt, beating their brushes against their shoe-shine boxes and sit in rows, shouting aloud in their youthful voices, "Shoe-polishing! Shoe-polishing!" Before they can get their hands any dirtier, I spare them my wild plums and hardy kiwis which they accept with anxious smiles and tender eyes.
At noon when the sun is scorching hot, men lie sound asleep, their plump paunches stuffed with delicious food moving up and down tuned to the rhythm of their snores and women gather in secret meetings whispering labrish through windows. Evenings when the chill breeze strokes the flowers to droop, kneading through the mesmerising gloaming which escorts a tempting crepuscule, come back the cattle to their homestead after an arduous day of grazing, for early tomorrow will arrive the milking-men with large empty silver pails. In the fullness of time, pops up the moon, so alluring in every shape she takes, calling her starry troop to light up the welkin. Primaeval birches in the woodlands, with trunks as white as snow, gnawed by black cavity as if they were mantled in coats of zebra skin, shoot up into the skies, piercing through the heavy mist, seeking to grasp light from the invisible shafts of coruscating celestials. Sprawling junipers, prickly pines, blunt hazels, outlandish sycamores accord shelter to dainty warbles and prudent rodents that slumber in the cradling arms of midnight’s breath as owls and crickets carol them lullabies.
What more do I need? Can there be a better life with greater eternal rapture than that which I bestride on this earth? Nay, I daresay: this is bliss. This is abundance. This is an elegant sufficiency. This is enough.