Che cosa fa, lui?

Several years ago I was at the home of a friend of mine in Italy. We were sitting at the kitchen table with his younger daughter, who was no more than two years old at the time. She had just finished eating something messy and I instinctively and gently dabbed around her mouth a little. She immediately looked up at her father and said 'Che cosa fa, lui?' Or, 'What is he doing?'

The same question popped into my mind as I exited the freeway just a few minutes ago. There is a man, dressed in civilian clothing, who for the past several weeks or months, or so I realize now, has been carefully planting various shrubs and flowers in the strip of earth that runs alongside the off ramp. Who he is and if he has authorization to do it is one question, but another question is, appunto, 'What is he doing? 'Che cosa fa?' And asked not only by me, but by the plants themselves. I imagine, that like the little toddler in Italy, the plants, in their own way, may very well be wondering, if you will permit my use of that word with reference to plants (but why not?), 'What the (bleep) is this guy doing?'

Plants, our most beleaguered of beings, are surely used to other beings messing with them. We talk of the birds and the bees in essentialist terms, but where would they be without the plants who suffer their ministrations? The activities of humans must be particularly strange. At least the birds and bees (and bats and other pollen collectors) have a specific instrumental purpose behind their visits and manipulations. Understanding what the human is doing, however, is a bit more mysterious. Che cosa fa, lui?