TEARS FOR THE TREES

I don't want to seem sentimental, although at my age I start to accept my feelings as they come.

Do you remember the movie The Lover, from Jean Jaques Annaud? It was filmed in the street Ton Duc Thang cross with Le Thanh Ton. The leaves from ancillary trees rolled on the ground dried by the drought or pulled by the furious winds on the raining season. It was one of the more fresh and romantic alleys, near the botanic zoo, one of the few green points on the city of Saigon. I have been going back and for under those centennial gigantic trees for more than ten years, and now, somebody has planned a better destiny for that street. City needs, I guess, which it looks like are not the same of the trees. Where it was shadow, the burning sun is now. Only an airport size dry and noisy street. One more. I wonder what will be this better plan, where are now those tons of wood, how we will replace hundreds of years of silent growth? At the moment, thinking of it, my throat is tight, my eyes wet. Let's weep for the trees, if someone feels the same.