I spend at least an hour underneath the melina tree in my
front yard every week while doing laundry. When I arrived in September, the
leaves of the melina tree were broad and green, providing ample shade for my
hammock hung beneath. In October, the melina tree was frequented by many
impressively loud and large bees, seeking the small yellow-red flowers that had
begun to show at the bases of some of the leaf clusters. In November, the
leaves turned yellow and fell dryly, lazily, to the ground below, where they
were chomped up by passing goats. The flowers remained. The line of ants that
had daily wound its way into the thinning canopy went away. In December, the
flowers also followed the leaves earthward, a fall faster but quieter. One goat
in particular, with one horn a bit chipped off, realized this new bounty. I
call her Flower because she must have eaten at least 60% of all the tender
yellow blooms that tumbled down. In January most of the flowers were gone,
replaced by almondlike fruits, green and hard. When these too fell, the goats
crunched them. It is now February, and a few tiny leaves have appeared on the
bare branches, and are growing bigger. The goats frequent less the space under the tree.
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Last Friday, there was a small dead goat lying in the
trampled straw beyond my front yard. A young but mature female was standing
over the presumably miscarried carcass, bleating quietly. I entered my house
and graded papers and made popcorn. About an hour later sounds of scuttling on
my roof announced the inevitable. From my porch I observed two vultures
standing around the carcass, one ducking in every few moments to retrieve a
morsel, the other waiting impatiently beside. The adult goat still stood vigilantly
beside the carcass, still bleating quietly. The carcass was pulled towards the dominant
vulture each time it tore off a piece, and the goat slowly followed the
procession of bird and food as it moved away from my house, inch by inch. The
shoulders of the goat and the shoulders of the vultures are the same height.
When I went by an hour later, I couldn’t find any trace of vulture, goat, or
meal.
