Someone has strewn the Arlington Town Hall fountains with orchids. Drenched in water, which is turned on as soon as the danger of frost has passed, they will last for at least a week. In this economic downturn, with many of us cutting spending, eating beans, buying our clothes in second-hand shops, swearing off Starbucks coffee, you might think I would criticize this display. I won't.Here's to the profligate spender who gave us these orchids, and to the profligate trees. All of them have come out at once: magnolia Mississippian, Cherry Japanese, apple, plum, lindens, maples like enormous weeds, nothing but pink, white, and chartreuse.
As I was taking pictures of the fountain, a boy threw pennies into the basin and made a silent wish. The pennies glittered. He kept going back to the fountain to look. He lingered, as if the pennies held his wishes there in the water that spread in ripples under the descending streams.
I love that he saw his wishes held there, glittering. I hope they come true.
ReplyDeleteI do too, nmj. He was so young. His mother stood off to the side, reading a letter.
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