On Lotuses

I know why there are so many poems on lotuses. In Indian literature, to have eyes like lotuses is a description reserved only for the goddesses or the most beautiful of women. In every temple, the lotus motif appears in thousands of variations. Lotus blossoms fill the white space of Chinese landscape paintings, bursting forth in luminous pink and white.

In the middle of my campus, there are several rows of flower pots filled with lotuses. I didn't notice this small garden at first. In the thick, polluted Beijing atmosphere, everything from a distance appears the same shade of hazy gray.

I've started looking at the lotuses in between classes. The leaves of the lotus plant are wide and flat lily pads, criss crossed with spiderweb veins like the creases on my palm. They fan outwards from a milky white center, edges curled like clouds. Below, in the basin of the flower pot is a viscous mixture of sludge and slime. In the heat of the day, I can see millions of tiny parasites twitching in the water, sparkling like bits of mica. The stalks of the lily pads shoot out of the water, straight and slender. Like many have said before, every flower has a different personality. Young buds are still green, halfway between stalk and blossom. Some sweet cheeked buds are nearly open, swollen into full pink moons. A lotus in full bloom is truly intoxicating. Its scent penetrates my nostrils and fills my lungs. Older lotuses with withered, yellowing petals are no less beautiful. And when a petal of a lotus falls, sometimes it will land on a lily pad and become the eyelash of an angel.