Banana Trees

They are tall herbs, really, not trees, though they can shoot up thirty feet if all goes well for them. Cut in cross section they look like gigantic onions, multi-layered mysteries with ghostly hearts. Their leaves are made to be broken by the wind, if wind there be, but the crosswise tears they are built to expect do them no harm. Around the steady staff of the leafstalk the broken fronds flap in the breeze like brief forgotten flags, but these tattered, green, photosynthetic machines know how to grasp with their broken fingers the gold coins of light that give open air its shine. In hot, dry weather the fingers fold down to touch on each side-- a kind of prayer to clasp what damp they can against the too much light.