(Image of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night
by 
The flame, flickering. The water, rippling. The rose bud turning its unfurling bloom to the sun. People all over the half of the world that is frozen in winter, burrowing indoors against cold and pandemic, gloved hands rubbing together in front of the fireplace, eyes on the flame, thoughts on nurture, survival and what’s for supper. People in the other half, enduring the burning sun of day to light the flame under Vincent’s starry, starry night and, mesmerised in the hypnotic flickering, casting the mind back to the hardships of the day, then forward to the challenges of tomorrow, but for now, for now, the respite of flame and succour.
The fire reaches its crescendo, every atom in every part of its fuel burning at full force, the entire orchestra as one, every eye on the conductor, you, sitting there, transfixed, lost in the furnace you have created for your pleasure and for your sanity, you, the firemaster, the flame conjuror, the maestro of the embers.
When the conductor has slowed the music and gentled the flames, the art of the meat is employed, the placing of this cut on the hottest part, that one at the edge to cook at leisure. The repast is eaten at wooden kitchen tables in all the land, and the humans talk of the trials and the joys they have found in their day, as do people at other tables in every part of the world, in many tongues, and discuss in somber tones the great pandemic and whether they will all survive it, and then the sage at the head of the table says her piece and they nod, and the children’s eyes widen and turn thoughtful, and a hand touches a shoulder and another an arm. All is well in the world, even when it isn’t.
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It’s a scenario as ancient as the furthest mountain, its roots as deep as the oldest of Great Zimbabwe’s Baobabs. Tables hewn of tree trunks felled by calloused hand, as far back in time as even a Methusaleh cannot fathom, hands turning wood, rubbing twigs, finding flame, building fire, felling a deer, slaughtering a goat, bleeding, hanging, skinning, slicing, trimming, curing, salting, grilling, tending, eating, grateful. The ancient ritual of humankind, at its rawest, in its core of cores. The hunger, the bounty, the gratitude.
When the house has fallen to the sleep of the quiet hours, the conductor returns to the chair below the sky and his eyes find the embers again, and his hand cradles the whisky he has poured himself, and he sips and he savours, and he reminds himself that this moment, with embers dying before him and the warm hug of the liquor he allows to linger on the tongue, has much to do with what life is all about, when all is said and done and you’re alone, just you and the universe, on your little perch below the sky.
It’s in those moments late on a still summer’s night, just me and Vincent’s night sky, whisky in hand, embers becalmed, thoughts deep and far, that the Nature Boy comes to me, and we sit, and we chew the cud, and we are as one. The story has fascinated me since I was knee-high and the song would play on the transistor radio, Nat “King” Cole in his mellifluous tone, There was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy, they say he wandered very far, very far, over land and sea. A little shy, and sad of eye, but very wise was he…
The Nature Boy in my youthful head attained a position of authority, of knowing rather than merely wielding power, especially in the context of adults who seemed to fall far short of the wisdom the Nature Boy accumulated in his travels over land and sea. And the ultimate wisdom our Nature Boy found in all his wanderings when, one day, he passed my way, and though we spoke of many things, fools and kings, this he said to me…
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return.