Yesterday's feature at West Coast Park were the fruiting palms. Seeing them calls to mind the first line of John Keat's poem Ode to Autumn - Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! - where Autumn is seen as an ally of the sun producing bountiful harvests and having colours and music in its own right just as Spring has. 

How I miss those literature lessons on poetry where my teachers did not rely on  powerpoint or fancy technology to awake in us a love for poetry. All they had were the textbook, their passion and their wonderful ways of expressing each poem and we appreciated poetry just by listening to their vivid explanations and description of things foreign to us.  My teachers fired my imagination and I see Autumn in my mind, not on the screen. My teachers did not have to entertain me to capture my attention. We were their slaves the minute the stepped into the classroom and opened her book to teach us the poem of the day.

In the newspapers today, it was reported that more local literature would be introduced in our schools. This may be a strategy to get students connected with Literature, a subject that has declined terribly in popularity in the schools. I hope that it will not be at the expense of helping them to connect with higher orders of thinking. John Keats, Lord Alfred Tennyson, William Blake, William Wordsworth - part of who I am have come from studying some of their poetry.

Chinese Fan Palm.

"...And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core."

Staghorn fern at the entrance to the MacDonalds.

Cannonball tree flowers.

Fruit of the Trumpet flower tree.

Shades of  colours that blend so well.

The Hibiscus hedges were blooming profusely.

Shade was a welcome reprieve from the blazing sun.

Another palm laden with fruits.

An inflorescence likely to be missed if you just look straight ahead.

Flowers have become fruit.

Pride of India flowers.

Bismark Palm.

All for survival purpose.

The morning walk ended as we watched a huge crane on a barge being escorted to the ship repairing yard.