Thursday, March 10, 2011


BEING SEEDS


Last night after a cold but sunny day of casual work in the garden and firewood (chainsawed a big stash of cherry from the landscaper below) I was beginning to think we’d had our last frost and Spring is here, when I looked out the big front window before heading to bed last night and there was already a big white BAM! on the deck, and snow was falling heavily in fat flakes.

So Spring is NOT here yet, nyah, nyah, said each flake, my potseeded lettuces getting more anxious by the day, like the beginning bergamot, dill, thyme and Italian parsley, all bent in green eagerness from their little pots toward the window each morning to sense what they can about the weather and the temperature out there, is it time yet, is it time? Are we there yet? sussing out the day length and all that other stuff plants know so much about, wind strength, moon phase too probably, angle of sun etc., all that natural computing going on in their stolid green beings. And we think we have the brains.

So this morning down at the ice-covered train station, my thoughts wisping Springy things around in the background there, I gazed at the beauty of the sugarcake mountains powdered with white against the big blue morning sky, when up at the edge of my uplooking eye I saw something moving and looked further upward -- there, coursing along in the high blue were two broad wedges of geese heading north-- in silence, from down where I was, though way up there the air was likely filled with excited chatter at the big goings on.

I stood and watched them go for as long as I could see them, each wedge being 70-100 geese; the sight filled me with the feeling I've been waiting for, the rush I get each year when the unspoken promise is kept once more as nature declares the arrival of Spring, and it came to me what seeds we humans are.



8 comments:

pserean said...

"HOW far are you from me, O Fruit?"

"I am hidden in your heart, O Flower."

R. Tagore

To spring and seeds:)

Mary Lou said...

Hey Robert, Hoping you and the girls are safe and dry. I know you are up high and down South but the girls are on the seashore up North are they not? Be safe, and dry! I am thinking of you all.

Tabor said...

Please post (when you can) to let us know how things are on the side of the mountain. We are thinking of you.

Anonymous said...

Hoping your part of the world is safe.

Mage said...

We are hoping you and yours are ok. Post when you can. You are in our thoughts.

Marianne said...

Your words so often just fill my eyes with tears. You are an amazing writer. And you write about so much that interests me. If we could glance from another's eyes in proxy for only 5 minutes, I'd like to pick yours! Again, beautiful! Thank you.

Please let us know you are OK in the aftermath of the earthquake. Praying for Japan here.

Chancy said...

Hoping you and yours are OK after the horrible quake.

pserean said...

Yes. Our prayers are with you- May God bring you all to safety and peace, ameen.