The hurricane months are not so far away, I thought, and saw the tree strike its roots deeper, making ready to fight the wind. Useless. If and when it comes they’ll all go. Some of the royal palms stand (she told me). Stripped of their branches, like tall brown pillars, still they stand – defiant. Not for nothing are they called royal. The bamboos take an easier way, they bend to the earth and lie there, creaking, groaning, crying for mercy. The contemptuous wind passes, not caring for these abject things. (Let them live.). Howling, shrieking, laughing the wild blast passes.
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (Penguin Books, 1966)
