Clouds

A few years back, one late afternoon I was with a friend at the Notting Hill Carnival.  It had been a beautiful sunny day, but now the sunset was approaching and we faced it walking west, basking in the last light of the day. Arriving at an intersection, I looked to my right into the heavy blue shade of the buildings.  On the next block down the sun shone only on one tree.  It was one of those trees with the lime green leaves that I’m so fond of here in the UK, plane trees I think they’re called, and it was glowing. Each leaf was like a bulb of lime-coloured light.  

I casually pointed this out to my friend and kept walking and talking.  After about thirty steps I realised I was talking to myself.  I looked back and he was still, like a statue, staring at the tree.  I came up beside him and said “you like it, huh”.  He replied that he had never seen such a beautiful tree before.  I must admit it was beautiful, but it wasn’t the tree.  It was the quality of the light.