Seeds

A seed is potential.

The as yet unrealized but altogether possible.

A seed is…

an idea

an attempt

a beginning

a hope. 

They seem unimpressive at first—nothing to write home about. 

But a seed is an embryo

waiting, trusting, existing.

It

 does not strive

but responds--

to the soil

to the elements ‘

to the tending

to the space.

Lemons

I have a lemon tree.

Thus far she is barren.

She keeps having miscarriages according to the internet. The tiniest little lemons pop up out of nowhere— a bright green hallelujah for a day or two— but then they yellow earlier then they ought, before they have had time to grow and to mature. Some seasons not even those appear. She is all flowers and fragrance. No fruit.

I love loving this lemon tree. I have found in my relationship with her a magic that I fail to conjure in human relations. I have no expectations. I want her to live. I like when she blooms. I would accept full grown lemons with joy and open arms, but I do not find her a waste of my time or of her existence should that day never come.

 Sometimes I hear disappointment in the voices of others looking down upon her when they find out she hasn’t produced in the way it was assumed she might, but I know that a being is a being unto herself. What could possibly be so disappointing about a life of flowers and fragrance? And even if those were taken from her, who dares scoff at

her green leaves,

her growing branches,

her persistence month after month

despite the heatwaves, the chills, the too much and not enough, and

the weight of discontented glances falling down upon her

even as she continues to expand

in her own way.

Tomatoes

Last year two cherry tomato plants flanked my lemon tree,

Aleigh bought about a million seeds, assuming most would not make it and then, of course, they did. I took two off her hands in March or April and was enjoying the first tomatoes by mid-July.  This year, impressed with my ability to keep last year’s ladies alive, I told her I’d take three. Once again, we moved them to my yard in spring. Same soil. Same pots. Same gardener. Two died so immediately and with such dramatic flare, it was hard to experience their concurrent demise as anything but comical. What could I have possibly done in three days to cause such devastation to these two while their sister plants over at Aleighs were growing wholly unbothered? Perhaps more curiously, what of this third, tall, almost braggadocios survivor of mine who gave me the sweetest most delicious little mid-October tomatoes a girl could ever ask for? Was she sat in the sun just the tiniest bit more or less than the others? Had she been craving something that my yard had to offer? Or was she just heartier by no fault or pride of anyone?

It's probably that last one, which makes me so angry.

And also,

if I’m honest,

strangely

relieved.

 Sunflowers

 Last year a sunflower shot up at the very front of my yard—unplanted, unplanned and I suspect unseemly to some passersby. But to me she was a bold and bright reminder that each day while I was backing out of my driveway anxious about meetings, angry about injustice, aggravated at some meaningless metric like the size of my jeans,

the earth was full of glory

with or without my permission

 much less direction.

Seedlings were falling to the ground,

shooting down and stretching up

birds were bird-ing

bees were bee-ing,

sun was shining—

life,

accidentally

but undeniably was becoming.

I love that wild beauty

arrives so unrepentant. 

Seeds

 When I was growing up someone might have said of these miracles “look at God, see him there in the majesty of nature,” and of course I do. I only wish more people would have said “look at you, there in all your glory

all flowers and fragrance,

all independence and strength,

all wild and worshipping

so little, and yet

so very

very

big.