Kind-Faced Cobras

The growing season in Louisville isn’t hot enough or long enough for banana trees to ever bare fruit. They never become taller than about fifteen feet.

Banana trees are slow beings, but consistent, their fruit some of the sweetest on the planet.

There are few beings better at waving than banana trees in Louisville. They wave at both you and themselves- talented that way- very inclusive.

Each huge leaf is its own hooded being who works in concert with the wind or the breeze to lift its face and release its hood out and back, expanding it, turning to the left and right in a quiet conversation about how good it is at mimicking the sway of an elephant’s trunk. Just like an elephant, it laughs to itself, just as lovely, just as grand, it laughs to itself, then changes the subject to the Louisville sun, especially come late August.

When a breeze is slight, the banana tree leaves remain bowed, tafetta-ed, green. When the breeze is slight, there’s only a small joke rustling between all the leaves, so they are only slightly chuckling. As a day’s breeze grows, the joke grows, or the dawning of its punch-line grows.

You’ll see it settle in after a while, bow its neck to resting, exhaled, cowled, taffeta-ed green. Almost silently, still chuckling.