The Guayacán That Blooms Alone

José Marín was walking through the pastures of the Fundación when he saw it: a guayacán bursting with yellow in the middle of a cloudy afternoon. Handroanthus chrysanthus, with its sun-colored flowers and grey trunk splayed open like arms, commanded the landscape as though it were the only tree that had anything to say that Monday in April. What makes the sighting special is not just the tree in bloom, but what stands before it: a dry log, without a single leaf, its bare branches pointing up toward the overcast sky. The contrast feels almost deliberate — as if the reserve had placed the two seasons of the forest face to face, the one that rests and the one that celebrates, and left it to the observer to decide which is which. The guayacán blooms without warning, without rain to summon it or a date marked on any calendar. It simply appears, all at once, whenever it pleases. And José was there to witness it.