January 30, 2021

My dearest,

I have never observed so many flowers in my life though I have been enough botanical reserves – the rose garden of Wellington, so regal and regimented; the Cape flora of Kirstenbosch, so wild and unrestrained.

This is but our humble garden.

Here are the scarlet ixora where the spiders spin their cobwebs. The spider lilies where multitudes of ants appreciate the flowers’ heady fragrance the way you do, the way you detect whenever I do not.

Here are the blue pea flowers where you once saw a tiny black praying mantis, ferocious despite its diminutive stature. The cycads where the cycad blues are supposed to breed though we see them nearly everywhere else in our garden.

Here is the hibiscus bush by the pool, its blossoms drooping and crimson as blood. Across the water, another hibiscus bush; its flowers have snow-white petals and a burgundy heart. And one more appears not far away, the hefty vermilion hibiscus that rarely blooms.

The frangipani that we recognise only by its pink flowers fallen to the ground. The orange birds-of-paradise where I have only recently rediscovered Krist and Singto and Ohm. There are white and yellow and violet flowers I do not know the names of.

These are the flowers I take pictures of for you, my dear. These you took for me too when you went on your morning and evening walks in our garden, before you left again for Bangkok. And now I follow in your footsteps.

These flowers are my love letters to you, the way they were yours to me.

Yours, ever and always.