Edible Shoots

     “Here I am up in the window, that indistinguishable head you see listing toward the sun and waiting to be watered. Through a pair of strong field glasses, you might be able to make out the color of my leaf (milky green), my flower (purple white), and the poor profile of my stunted growth. In open country with stem and root room, I could top four feet. Want a true botanical friend? Guess my species and you can take me home”.        If you can call into mind a dying houseplant at a deserted house during the worst war ever, get into her shoe and read again the above lines. That was yet another equally wonderful beginning. First lines of a novel by Stephen Wrights,  Meditations in Green . A great narrative about the Vietnam War (1955 to 1975). It was originally published in 1983. Not sure how many times I revisited these lines over years .     And one last note on the pic: It was shot on a cold Saturday morning from Jannathul Baqueeu, famous graveyard very close to the res