The Moveable Feast

Marcel, our gardener-extraordinaire has been watching the reports from Haiti, his homeland. After Hurricane Jeanne set on its path of devastation last week, the news from Haiti, the poorest country in the Caribbean, has not been good. Many lives are lost and a desperately poor island has been racked with floods, acute shortage of vital water and food, and now loss of hope.

Marcel’s wife and children live in Haiti while he works in the Bahamas, sending money back to them each month. We do not think they have been affected as they do not live in the area most devastated. With communications in and out of Haiti almost nonexistent, we anxiously await some kind of indication how they are.

Now as Jeanne’s path seems to include The Bahamas, we once again set out on preparations to weather it out.

Why is it that this year seems to be particularly stormy? Some of our friends are convinced that it is the result of global warming and the encroachment of humankind on the delicate and intricate eco-systems of our earth. We have somehow played with the cosmic order and the downward course on which we have placed earth forbodes our inevitable self-extinction. Some even suggest that it is a punishment for growth, petrochemicals, and unbridled exploration into the forbidden clockworks of the natural order.

We offer to them our thought that weather is not necessarily something that repeats annually like a predictable familiar song. To us, the ups and downs of the cycles seem to be a reminder that we are a blink in the big picture; something that we humans call a natural disaster is just a momentary disturbance to Mother Nature.

Long cycles intertwine with short, lives come and go, trees grow and fall, and the waters of the oceans continue to lap the shores. The natural events of our earth are much bigger - and much more durable - than anything that humankind could ever boast of affecting. Hurricanes are a reminder that change is constant and that we must enjoy what we have while we have it. We simply are not masters - or mistresses - of our own destiny, as the theories of our friends suggest. Strip away what little control our governments, businesses and societies have over our natural world, and each of us is revealed as the temporary observer we are of the whole.

However, none of this is much of a comfort today. We wish there was some way to ease Marcel’s concerns as he works.

I moved a little closer to see a wonderful surprise. An adolescent male Bahama Mockingbird sat in the shade. In its cooling stance, he was all fluffed up, wings drooped low as he caught a low breeze. He shook vigorously himself every few minutes, the source of the miniature flurry.

After such serious storms, the air of our island is silent, empty of songs from our local birds, all but blown away. Our mornings have yet to return to the calls of the threshers and bahama mockingbirds as they defend their territory against the rising sun. To us it is strange. Beautiful sunny fall days, now quiet.

The warblers have returned but remain timid. They are aggressive as they feed on the new bougainvilea flowers and umbrella tree, but do not seem to feel as though singing is necessary. We know that all bird nests would have likely been destroyed in such high winds and driving rains. Perhaps they are just now returning to their house-building activities. Soon there will be plenty of song-wars between these little flying gemstones, and their cousins the Bananaquits.

I continued to watch as the little Mockingbird cooled and preened. It will just be a few days until this young male is once again protecting his area, armed with a medley of songs. The repetoire may be a little shorter, perhaps only indicating what songs are carried in the genetic memory of the species.

We have observed this before. Fresh songs will be learned to add to the medley as birds of other species re-enter the area. The mockingbird gathers the songs of the intruders, adjusting his warning songs to their language. Soon his progeny will re-learn the thirty or so variations that a Bahama Mockingbird colony knows, each version a little different in each male.

As I continued my walk, I also saw that the Night Blooming Cereus (Epiphyllum oxypetallum) had flowered. The storms had done them damage, and the white blooms on the plants as I round the corner to them is a very pleasant treat.

The blooming of the cereus is a twice or three times yearly event that never fails to bring us out at midnight to see the soupbowl-sized white flowers, blooming in a wild profusion in our back garden. They are most definitely the Queen of night flowers. The slow-growing succulent is normally a tangled lattice of green triangular tendrils the size of your forearm, creeping and winding its way to the tops of the trees. On the rare night they chose to bloom, the woods are covered in large white-yellow flowers, oddly attractive with their long white tentacles surrounding the dusty yellow in the flower cup.

Swarms of bees and insects of the night cannot resist the heady charm of the flower’s aroma. The interior of the flower is engineered perfectly to brush its pollen onto their bellies as they enter.

In the early morning, the flowers remain in their magnificent display until the sun is direct on the plant. Our cereus colony grows best where the dew tends to gather in the morning. The glisten of the wetness in the early morning light is a beautiful sight, then the flowers slowly droop closed.

In a small number of the flowers, a brilliant red fruit forms. For us this is a lucky event. The fruit of the cereus tastes much like kiwi, only more exotic. Maybe it’s knowing about the strange and wonderful night flower that makes that first bite so delectable.