The Durian, King of Fruits, and: Don’t Go Expecting, and: Evening Primrose

Abstract

The Durian, King of Fruits, and: Don’t Go Expecting, and: Evening Primrose J. Allyn Rosser (bio) The Durian, King of Fruits Who could explain the lure of the durian,its dung-blasted musk of maturing carrionencased in a spiky, mace-like husk?Addictive, eaten in secret: a nothing-inuringodor of vomit, rotten egg, urine,weeks-old twice-worn gym-sock stench . . .Yet tigers will kill if they must for one durian,leaving both victim and basket, hurryingoff with the more scrumptious lunch.Illegal in Thailand to eat in the open, andshunned by every Kuala Lumpurianwho’s managed thus far to quenchthe yearning for golden pulp so creamily purein sweetness, that for those who endurethe durian’s grand emporiumof stinks, it must be like swimming to Charonthrough brimstone: reboard that ferry andfeast, feast deep on sweetness there,as if they might exhale their way to open air. [End Page 295] Don’t Go Expecting “. . . It has been the custom of travellers to describe and group together all the fine plants they have met with during a long journey, and thus produce the effect of a gay and flower-painted landscape . . .” — Alfred Russel Wallace, from The Malay Archipelago One’s disappointment is perhaps the one constant,because people are always going to Facebookthe best meals, the best views, the sunniest days.We are mortals and our journey tends to drag on.Mist is more magical in movies and booksthan driving in meaningless patches of poor visibility.There are more gasps of delight and horrorin any twenty pages of even the most realist literaturethan you will hear in a year of genuine living.Just don’t go expecting much. Even wildflowers—the buttercups and heather, the bloody daffodils—they don’t gather the way Wordsworth said they did.Little clump here, clump there, and they don’t allbloom at once, even the daffodils you’ve plantedin the front yard. These in early March,those in late April. And when birds gatheraround here, it’s generally to celebrate roadkill.Snow does not always produce a feelingof thrilled grandeur and Pascalian isolation;it’s scraped into middens of slushy sootalong the street, that’s what catches your actual eye,and it turns quickly crusty and lumpy and mud-patchedin the storied Vermont countryside. I lived there.Stars don’t always twinkle, in fact they quite often [End Page 296] stare dully down, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed,even on the clearest of nights. They are both less remote(in a scientifically explicable way) and more remote(in a damp cold-night way) than rapt gazers imply.Love is never as instantaneous and continuouslyblissful as the songs would have you believe;even when it goes wrong the drama is less thanexciting; more a tedious nuisance, the effortto move on, in fact that is what is truly continuous,that’s what you can count on, the Sisyphean,Oh god the relentlessly failing effort to leaveevery last beloved behind. [End Page 297] Evening Primrose The yellow evening primrose opens only at dusk, and so rapidly that the blossoming occurs within seconds. Nothing prim about her.She’s all Watch Me,Hot Stuff While-U-Wait.But you have to meet heron her shady turf ’s terms,a quarter past twilight.Come alone.Bring a crowd,put the blame on Mame andforget that bimbo Hibiscus,those flutter-pulsed Stargazersand high-falutin Grandifloras(straight from jailbait to matron)when you get there alreadyfull-blown on some exclusive,fussily private schedule.You’ll never catch them at it,see one petal start to pout.You only see them withtheir Doris Day faces on,Deborah Kerr buttons done.Whereas this insouciantlyMarlene-Dietricious,Mae-Westious come-up-and-see-me,be-seein’-ya Ritawill drop garter right here [End Page 298] and now, bust into all-outpistil-poppin’, leer-fannin’cancan, boom chaca boomboom boom!Breathe in the scent of hersensing your presence,spending her wild-sideone-day bloom on you,putting out...