SEEDS INTO THE WORLD

We had the traditional turning to Spring a few days ago, Echo doing the soybean-tossing ritual late at night; therefore we think of it as Spring already... So there I was, out in the late Spring afternoon today, thick curtains of snow in the way far north, that's yukiguni (snow country) up there, where it looks like it's still winter, but here it's perfect chill Spring weather for splitting firewood, and so I do. I have a new camphorwood splitting stump, which the landscaper down below left for me by the roadside. He left two of them. Perfect they are: sleek, heavy, fragrant, immune to decay...

The pauses are splendid too, I stop and rest the axe on the sawdusty ground, look up and see a blueing sky, the sun touching all with gold every now and then, and between me and the sky the lacework of the old chestnut tree, its limbs bare but for a few stubborn dun leaves and a last dozen or so spiky husks, now wide open as though shouting to the sky "I did it! I did it! I sent my seeds off into the world! To become big trees! I did it!" And right they are. Emptynesters know that feeling.

Working near the garden, thoughts of seeds naturally germinate into ambitions... Gonna try some tromboncino this year - heard the stems are too tough for the weevils to poke into... and some radicchio too (up here on the mountain? gotta try it!) and a zuke variety not so dependent on insect pollination, more like ad hoc immaculate conception; sounds interesting too. And some different kinds of basil in the new herb bed; more seeds waft on the mindwind...

The sky is getting bluer as I work, even as it gets colder, the split oak stacking up until the barrow is full, then it's wheeled over a ways and added to the cord-to-be, all those woody triangles a richening shade of pale gold, wooden ingots of wealth in the blue of the sky; then suddenly there are, all over the place - what must be - yes, they are: big fat flakes of snow, plopping straight down through the still air onto the split wood, the axes and me, the ground all around turning white, where in heaven did they all come from? It’s blue up there! Winter again!?

Not for the whole rest of the day, I hope.