Each
plant a voice in a chorus
It was a summer evening. I was in
the garden, below a tree, fingertips burrowing in brittle soil. I thought
again, how in some language, there must be a word for being held between the
earth and an open umbrella of canopy. The feeling that comes upon a child
rested in the body of a guardian. On a gardening show, I’d seen that small
birds want branches that skirt the ground, so they have places to hide, and by
then the wrens flitted, familiar, after my afternoon of weeding. How many times
had I wished also, for a word for their movement, part skipping, part darting,
not either. My daughter was close when she said they move through the garden
like a grain of a film on fast-forward. These holes where words could be. I’ve
weeded our garden through drought, when roots grip the dirt like a hand, and in
the wet, when they pull free like a fish leaving the river. This airlifting of
weeds to the compost pile, it must be in our blood – a line of us
squatting over the canvas of cabbage patch. The weeds always growing in
again. There’s a word missing here, too. Something about prevailing. Something
about coming back, despite a lack of welcome. Something about
flourishing in hard spaces – the cracks between pavers, the darker corners
of the garden.
"I’ve weeded our garden through drought, when roots grip the dirt like a hand, and in the wet, when they pull free like a fish leaving the river." LOVELY 😍
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