BEANPOD CONVERSATIONS

Out in the garden this morning, pausing in my work to wipe the old brow and have a sip of water, I happened to be standing before the armspread profusion of the bean plants reaching, in all their white, pink and purple emotion, for what was out there. They were in love with the air, with being all there is to be, right now, just like we humans try to do in our better moments - reaching for the light - and I just had to hunker in their shade to admire.

As I did so, a green arm offered me a fresh beanpod so I took it, popped it into my mouth and we started talking together the old language of bean and tongue, a language we both know well, of nourishment and primal flavors, existential nuances that beans and bodies have worked out together over the eons that got us here, in great part on bean nourishment.

It was good, that little miracle right then, me and the bright plants hunkering there, sharing a delve into the deep history pertaining between that crisp green gift, stemmed from soil, rain and sun upon a seed, and this tongue, practiced middleman for the bean-body relationship.

It was rich in countless ways, our little get-together-- bean and tongue conversing in crunches and savorings of matters far older than either of us, bean becoming the man who plants the bean, when another kindly offered me a fresh beanpod, in which there were savors of the earth, and water, and growth - the past was there too, in summer mornings... and the hint of tomorrow...

So there we were for a time in the morning, ancient familiars, conversing once more on the Big Subject...