There is a certain absurdity about the tropics and it is a certain absurdity that one would do well revel in. Firm and fecund follows alongside foetid and futile. A tropical flower is often a beautiful allegory to life. A life that forever aspires sun-wards, reaching and grasping for the unobtainable distant fiery firmament but in its maturity creates a sensual beauty that turns earthward and, like the divine weight of a breast in the palm of the hand, is tactile symbolism of all that is not us and our brave attempts to know the other, to feel as the other feels and to transmit those fleeting, Faustian fantasies that make life what it is, or, at least what it could be...
We could equally be talking about the Datura (OK for the pedant it would be the Brugmansia, but datura sounds better!) that poisonous "Angel's trumpet" which is most kaliesque in its beauty:
Racines and romance
The datura hangs but does not drip.
Its flowers, not the living wax of the
poet,
But the trumpet of death.
Why would a flower so full; buxom.
Why would a flower, fully fecund like
that, droop drearily to the earth?
Because we are to conditioned to
believe that all that is good is up.
There is only one down and that is
hell.
The earth is dark, dirty and damned
So, damn all those that find life and
reason there.
Damn all those that cannot up lift
their faces
And receive the blessings of a god on
high.
Damn those that would seek their own
identity
In the roots; the very earth of their
creation.
And have the courage to rejoice,
Shouting their defiance at a jealous
god.
Damn the datura for its presumption.
Damn the datura for it is free
And its beauty betrays its freedom.
Perhaps, these are not trumpets, they
are amplifiers
And their scent is their interpretation
of the life that caresses their roots.
The language of the flowers is not some
nonsensical Victorian sentimentalism.
The language of flowers is their scent,
their colour, their tactility
Each one speaks to us in its own
language,
Each one describes in its own way the
experiences
Of its deep and intimate relationship
with the earth,
The Earth.
Each element of creation speaks
In its own manner, by its actions
The scent of the flower,
The song of the bird,
The breaking of a wave.
What then is human society
A dying testament to our relationship
with creation?
…and we amalgamate all these mutated
half-lives,
These narcissistic fancies and call it
society
And that must be protected at all
costs....
