Dandelion don't tell no lies
a song line
a song line
The were two palm trees growing in my neighbourhood. Two tall palm trees. Growing in the backyards of family houses, the house three houses up from mine and the house neighbouring it on the street parallel to ours. When I stepped out on my front porch and looked back over the roof of the house next door, I saw them there, rain or shine, winter or spring. I took numerous photographs of them whenever the light was interesting, all of the shots from this porch, as this was the best angle to photograph the palms, unless, of course, I climbed on the roof, which I seldom did, and for reasons other than taking pictures. Too late now.
On Saturday morning, I woke up to the sound of power tools outside. I walked out to see two Mexican men on top of the palm trees trimming their branches with chainsaws and machetes. I grabbed my camera. It turned out that the two property owners decided to cut down the trees because of all the trouble they had caused them, the dry leaves and branches falling, requiring constant cleanup work,"scaring the children". The Mexicans climbed the trunks, tools tied to their belts, and worked their way down. First the top branches, then the trunks, piece by a footlong piece, and by the early afternoon the palm trees were gone, like they had never been there.
How long had they grown here, 50, 100 years? There is no one here who remembers. Who planted them? They were the only palm trees on this block or on the eight blocks that surrender or touch it. The nearest palm trees, neither one visible from my house, are a half mile up this street, and the other one a half mile down the parallel street. While there is plenty of greenery around here, a fig tree and a plum tree in neighbours' backyards, dropping fruit on my property, an apple tree on my backyard, there have been more trees cut than planted in my area.
A street named after a flower with no flowers of the kind on it. Are there oak trees on Oak Street, cedars on Cedar Street? Grove Street has long been renamed to honour a modern hero and martyr, and only one public person dared to protest, while a local folk singer wrote a song in which he called anyone who referred to the street as "Grove Street", "racist", a modern crime more serious than murder.
There are plenty of palm trees of several varieties in this area which isn't very warm but it's not too cold. Palm trees surrounding a parking lot of a multiplex theater and an office building in the neighbouring city. Imported from Mexico 20 years ago. Seven very long palms on top of the hill where religious colleges Catholic and Protestant reside. Palms here and there in residential neighbourhoods. Palm trees are a commodity, bought, sold and apparently stolen, which makes me wonder why the two on my block weren't sold. Perhaps removing them safely from the backyards of family homes would have been too dangerous and too expensive, requiring helicopters and special equipment. Perhaps this variety isn't worth much.
Now, when I step out on the front porch the momentary illusion of paradise that the two palm trees produced is no more.
P.S. There is no Dandelion Street.
