What kind of shrub grows an Empire?
What kind of shrub shifts the well-laid tracks of global trade routes?
What kind of shrub doesn't know whether to be of nature or man?
Its even green sings the song of nature, stretching in an unbroken landscape to the forest's pristine chaos-
-except when in need of picking. Then its bright, almost glowing, fresh tips are the shade of a newly trimmed outfield, standing out against nature's dark olive.
But, its flat-topped, close-cropped 'do tell a tale that's all man, as do the fine parts that section off the shrubs into labyrinthine patterns for the pickers to navigate.
And what kind of shrub, each day, draws hordes of humans with wicker baskets on their backs and conical hats that are to the Vietnamese Paddy Hat what a novelty sombrero is to a real sombrero.
What kind of shrub...
