Under the Banana Tree

I graduated from art school fifteen years ago. At the time I lived in a small cedar-shake cottage beside a clump of gnarled lilacs. The cottage was probably not intended for year-round use and mould ate my mattress, so the floor became my bed. Each night I watched the moon and stars and treetops. One maple created the silhouette of a pipe-smoking man's head in profile. When the wind got up the man in the tree would laugh and swallow his pipe.