The yellow rose needed a friend, and it’s not a Covid fairy tale

By Poppy Mookerjee

When we bought this old house a few years back, I came upon a limp yellow rose flowering weakly in one corner, with a trailing perfume that wrapped around the nook with a lemony mist. But it was just one lonesome bloom every spring. So. it solicited little attention.

To brighten up the corner, the next year I planted a miniature rose by its side and, lo and behold, the old rose sprang up, bouncing with prolific florals the next season. No extra fertilizer nor feeding, just a happy yellow rose singing to the winds.

It crossed my mind that, perhaps, roses too enjoy companionship like humans do. However, it seemed a little too tenuous and optimistic so I kept my beliefs to myself until I watched a Netflix documentary, “Intelligent Trees” the other day which confirmed scientifically, that, indeed, plants and trees do have a hidden life of tight friendship and support through their roots. They, in fact, struggle if planted alone and many even go on to support the ancient stumps of trees that have been destroyed by time.

I wondered if there are the same symbiotic ties between the human world and nature that remain invisible to the human eye – that is, if these connections were encouraged rather than destroyed, it would create for a more vibrant lifestyle.

The documentary reminded me of the time when for higher education I moved from the verdant greenery of the Dalma hills in Jamshedpur to Kolkata, a busy city with no window into gardens or forests.

The adjustment to city squalor took such a deep toll that I, literally, fell sick with undiagnosed stomach and thyroid ailments. Deep down I knew the heartache was for the flowers and trees I had grown up with, but it seemed too trivial of any mention amid other pressing problems that overwhelm us in a city.

So, I just bore up with the urban wretchedness of overhanging wire heads, tall skyrises and a sky that never peaked blue.

It seems fundamentally wrong to deprive ourselves of the mystic wonder that nature has to offer us every single day. Can lessons of patience, of unexpected joy and fellowship with birds and animals that we learn under its lap be garnered from a text book?

Human civilization itself grew up under its vast, velvet green canopy. From the Garden of Eden to the Garden of Gethsemane to the Arabian deserts of the Prophet Muhammed to the Vrindavan Gardens and the Bodhi Tree, we learn that enlightenment seemingly passed on from under the green eaves of trees to the subterranean layers of the human mind.

Not everyone has access to a garden but public open spaces with unfettered wilderness can certainly be knitted into our lives.

And yet we seem to belittle its value and are decidedly going down the path of eradicating woodlands, fields and meadows for ad hoc reasons.

If at all, the 2020 pandemic should have opened our eyes to the immense prospect nature plays in our lives with parks and sanctuaries taking on a new meaning. With gyms closed and social activity nearly coming to a halt, people sought open spaces for their daily exercises, walks or just to relieve themselves from the claustrophobia of their homes. It was the only way to keep sanity during quarantine.

In Paris, France, there were endeavors to transform street sidewalks into tiny gardens with resident neighbors building up initiatives. Pavements lined with wild flowers and colorful plants softened not only the landscape but also the heart.

We humans have hardened our hearts by removing ourselves from nature’s tender filaments, its swathes of silence, its persistent resilience and its surprising tales of rebirth.

When we grow in the midst of nature, we grow too. Gerard Manley Hopkins, the English poet writes that the natural world is “charged with the grandeur of God” and there is plenitude and fullness in the plumpness in the waxen of green trees..

Because when we stop to take a closer look at a tiny flower we get the sure feel of the skirt of eternity behind its material beauty. For to know a small, dainty thing like a flower is to give it the time it takes to know a friend as was poetically noted by the American artist, George O’ Keefe.

There is just too much beauty around us to let go unnoticed.