Village Notebook: The Message in the Bouquet
Samir Atallah
The dictionary of nature is sparse in words. Its meanings are direct—simple and repetitive. Here, in the villages, we learn it all while we are still young. Your humble philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, says: “Nature always prefers straight paths. When the fruit ripens, it falls. When the leaf reaches its full maturity, it too falls. Just like human beings, like fruits, like trees: things progress only to eventually fall.” The melancholic French song says, “Dead leaves are gathered in baskets.” Its version takes the shortest route, just as its grand interpreter, Emerson, puts it.
No one disputes this matter here, especially when the days grow shorter, rivers overflow, darkness arrives early, and nature persistently repeats its lesson: Warmth, dear amateurs, or the bitterness of the cold. A concise and decisive lesson. Nature has no time to waste here or there. It still has a long journey to visit the inhabitants of the river district, the thyme valley, and the fox hill to deliver its messages and warnings for this season: cold and treacherous ice, dangerously slippery roads, and the need to return home before darkness overtakes you. Do not linger on your way back. Do not gaze at the bare trees searching for anything—there is nothing on them before the annual cycle. Until then, nature delivers its lessons in all forms: thunder, lightning, dark clouds, and heavy rains.
The planet, Emerson insists, is a simple, clear, and uncomplicated machine. Nature has no time because it is time. One of its charms is that it distributes time like perfume sellers—drop by drop. It allocates energy as if life were a musical ensemble, each playing their instrument: the farmer offers corn, the poet sings, the woman weaves wool, and the children present a bouquet of flowers.
