Night Blooming

Up in the back yard, sprawling over an old rock wall, was the night blooming cereus. In the middle of the summer, on a full moon night, we grabbed a large flashlight and headed up there. Walking barefoot over a gravelly path, pushing apart the long, smooth, cool ginger leaves, moving into deeper layers of shadow, we could already detect the faint scent of pollen.
A loud military chopper flew overhead, making the valley reverberate.

Parting more layers of darkness in front of us, we passed through swathes of crickets and tried not to step on the toads. The path continued upwards, through a corridor of velvety black space. We sensed that we were walking beneath the mulang tree. Silent birds gathered along its massive branches.

I noticed a number of dim, feathery shapes ahead of me in the moonlight. As the beam of the flashlight swept across the wall, a silent apparition of large white blooms exploded into view. The scent of pollen was now stronger, heady, delirious. We shined the light directly onto a flower and peered inside…