Hunya of the Porches

Hunya of the Porches by J.B. Pravda

I used to love sitting on the porch in the early morning or at dusk, he
thought, surveying the street where he had grown to young
manhood.

It was there, only there, as I recollect, that my soul rejoiced at the
intended blending of the breeze with the hum and chatter of the insect
and the bird and, even, the faint laughter of people enthroned on or
near those marvelous platforms enclosing and extending their refuge
from the storms of living. As if in completion of and in harmonious
competition with this man-made covering, the street was lined with the
tunneling canopy of corresponding branched towers whose leaves seemed
as dappled light through a prism so as to bathe their rainless rainbow
with the full complement of hues.

I believe my favorite leafy tower we called Hunya after the sound we
thought we often heard issuing from her uppermost reaches when the wind
made its hearty embrace felt upon her hair-like branches.

Many years have passed and that ailing trunk mirrors my demise, now
shrunken and singular in its abiding, sans but a few sturdy, though
sagging erratically barked limbs betray her silent retreat from life's
joining song.

As I laid my familiar hand upon the place whereon was carved that name,
the joyful tropism of days past fell upon my
ear&;#8230;&;#8230;.when I 'awoke' this symbol of my youth was
once again full and strong and in company of her fellows, at play in
the winsome waves of turbulent air.

Something, someone spoke to me, I thought, soothingly announcing in a
native tribe's tongue: "Welcome to Hunya&;#8230;..our word for
Heaven&;#8230;."