Large courtyards are rare in the city.
I mean the kind with a wide lawn, where children can play, where you could throw a party. It’s a little sad: a park-sized lawn always makes me think of that person.
The story didn’t happen on a wide lawn, though. I don’t know why I always pair it with grass. Afternoon lawns and the memory of the story seem to smell the same.
“That person” looked a little older, a thin tall man, always in a long coat, a small potted tree in his hands, appearing in the afternoon breeze. First he would find a patch of green in the sun, set the tree down, spread the coat beside it, rest his head against the pot, cover his face with a hat, and take in the January light with his small tree. January here is not bitterly cold, and there is no need to be greedy for sun, but the man always appeared on sunny afternoons in a park or a school or any public green in town, choosing the light to sunbathe with the tree — or sitting a meter or two away in the shade, reading, and sometimes, absorbed, suddenly reciting a passage aloud.
When he and the tree lay in the sun, and a mild wind made the whole scene tremble slightly, it was like a vision, slowly showing how the man and the tree were speaking.
Sometimes he would lie there making sound — like language and like humming. Sometimes a sentence you could understand would appear.
But never a complete meaning
The smell of plants.
Sage in a bath has a sacred smell.
Sunlight through the small tree reached his hat, shifting, a vivid green flicker that made you think some small green figures had jumped out.
Sometimes he would walk from one green patch to another and still lean on the tree in the sun — maybe because the grass smelled different, maybe because he had heard something.
Smell and sound are sometimes alike. Without trying, a sound slides past your ear; without trying, you catch the smell of leaves on the lawn slipping away. Smell and sound let you attend to the air around you without spending effort.
What did he smell? Or perhaps what did he hear?
Afternoon light on a small potted tree on the lawn. The man stretched, the hat slid from his face, the small green figures on the grass laughed and fled, and I crossed the treetops, leapt onto the roof peak, and smiled down.