all ablaze
Fire trees are in full bloom in the blazing summer heat of the tropics.
wonder | wander | women are nostalgic for these brilliant blooms, our scorching blue skies, violent thunderstorms, and warm curtains of rain.
Also known as flame or flamboyant tree, Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia) is a semi-evergreen or deciduous member of the bean family characterized by fernlike, lacy green leaves, scores of spoon-shaped, brilliant red flowers and brown pods that make a rattling sound when wind goes through the tree.
Wallowing in shallow waves, half in and out of the water. Buoyed by the sweet warm caressing salt water. Luxuriating in the powder soft sand as it shifts underfoot to accommodate more of me in its enveloping embrace.
Pregnant with tantalizing textures. Succulent and golden as a ripe mango. Lazily rolling around, empty of all thought. Soaking in the sunshine in absolute bliss. Just waiting to be peeled open and sucked on in grateful appreciation.
Ahhh. . . .this is the life!
The soundtrack to go with this, of course — summertime, and the living is easy, fish are jumping, and the cotton is high. Torch song eulogy in extreme ecstasy.
In our cities, out on the road, in our cloistered campuses, out in the rural sticks — these towering totems with their heads ablaze, waving their airy branches, rattling their seed pods — were our summer siren song.
Their shade was our only relief from the hellfire breath of the sun and the sweltering humidity kissing the equator. Sweet surrender in escalating temperatures and the corrosive ocean breeze.
Summers as exotic as a luscious Gauguin painting of his husky dusky beauties. Yummy!
Originally published at https://wonderwanderwomen.blogspot.com.
