City official Wiarda, dressed in khaki municipal corduroy, tried to remember the rest of the Flemish poet's wordplay, but the lines wouldn't come to mind and he hummed musically instead, visualizing the flowers' glory. The waterworks engineers shouldn't complain so much, Chief Wiarda thought. So the mountain-ash bushes were six feet tall, and their roots were unsettling the rocks, so what? The quays had been around for hundreds of years, they would last a while longer. His duty was to make sure there was still some natural life in this godforsaken town. More wildflowers, more fre'sh leaves, pom-pom (he was humming again), the wild and won' drous glory. Flowers would raise the spirits of the citizens. By encouraging the city's greenery he was doing good work. The chief stooped to admire a large cluster of golden dandelions, not of the common variety. Strong stems, shiny leaves. Very nice, right? But just look at that mess floating in the harbor. Ah, another report to be drawn up, bristling with understated sarcasm. Stinking garbage, torn plastic, all in the wrong colors, unmentionables glued together, cubic yards of disease breeding filth, and-well, why not?-a burned-out dory. A dented aluminum wreck, eight feet long, pushing its prow stupidly against the smooth rocks, damaging the blooming bushes with its inane destructive bashing. Wiarda lowered himself carefully, finding support by holding on to the ashes' branches. Maybe he was a provincial, talked down to by the city slickers, but in Friesland, his home, such degeneration would not be allowed, and thanks to him, the country bumpkin, prepared to work for the country's worst part, it wasn't as bad here as it would certainly be without him. He would never give up fighting against filth. This very day he would type out his umpteenth report and deliver it personally to City Sanitation.