Vista Hermosa Woke in Flowers

When Nilson set out to walk his land in the Vista Hermosa sector, the oak forest had already stolen a march on the day: the entire understory — that fine-grained world that usually goes unnoticed — was carpeted in pink and yellow blooms. Among them, a wild cucurbit opened its five yellow petals like small suns that had fallen to earth, while high in the branches the same trees displayed their own pink flowering against a backdrop of grey sky and still-leafless limbs. It was the dry season stepping aside for something else. The forest was quick to fill with movement. In the trees and all around them, the chau chau and the carpintero moved from branch to branch, and lower down butterflies and dragonflies drifted among the flowers with that particular unhurried ease that insects carry when food is plentiful. Nilson documented everything: three photographs and two videos capturing the oaks in full transition, the understory transformed for a few days into something resembling a garden that belonged to no one. It was the kind of discovery that cannot be planned for. Nilson had not gone out looking for anything in particular — he simply lives there, knows that forest, and had the eyes to recognize that what he was seeing was worth telling.