Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago? - Song Lyrics
The sun is disappearing behind the roof of the string of houses in the city. I'm back home after a summer vacation at the farm. It is quiet. Even the wind has stopped its teasing gust.
As the remaining rays of light retreat from the scene, I recall my endless, golden days of play.
We flew through the door like sun rays to traipse onto pilapil footpaths criss-crossing the paddies and the world would, for a heartbeat, seem perfect. We raced barefoot behind the bamboo grove, huffing at a scurrying iridescent beetle. We ate green mangoes, sucked on impossibly seductive guavas bursting in little explosions of flavor in our mouth. We taunted the grumpy water buffalo slouched in the same position as the previous day under the sampaloc tree.
I don't know what to make of the wave of nostalgia that has overcome me. I long for the wide, open plains, the swaying talahib grasses and ripening grain of summer. I yearn for the guttural call of wild pigeons, the wind off the rice fields smelling of nothing but earth. I miss teasing the bashful makahiya. I miss the smell of flowers in Aling Pining's garden. I miss being beholden to the nuno. I miss my dreams, even if they are only of quiet darkness.
Evening has set in, a welcome pause when everything hangs suspended under the canopy of a star-freckled sky. I can imagine the moon shining over Bashful Lane. It sparkles on Old Man's Mound and is blessing the four o'clock flowers, now dozing, their black seeds secure.
My head is heavy; my eyelids, too, so I lie down on the pillow and close my eyes. Sleep comes at me like an inky wave. I resist it for a moment, then let it draw me under.
I miss myself.
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