Terrarium
Yeah, I mean what are you?
My knees in the soil and my hands pushing down, hunched over with my face pressed to the earth and looking, breathing hard with shock and fear and happiness, peering at the bud; the shoot like a hand searching for a hold, emerging.
Just sitting back here, hating everyone?
It must be preserved. A sea of barren fallow and suddenly, the shoot. I am almost willing to lie here with the worms crawling on me if it meant I could protect the tiny life fighting through to the sky. If I could hold it and keep it and grow it all by myself and clutch it close like a child, I would. If it only needed me to grow everything would be okay. But that would mean pulling it free from its roots and its birth and its sustenance, and that would mean death. Death. Certain and unmistakable and unwelcome death. Not for this. I’ve fought for this. I’ve been waiting for this.
Who are you to judge anyone?
What must be done then, to help the shoot to grow…. I will build my life around it. I will watch it every day. I will keep it and cherish it and love it and, most of all, protect it. Save it from myself. It’s not about me. It’s not about the field or the sky or the drought or desperation. It’s about life. New life. It’s about saving a life. Rain will nourish it and sunlight will warm its face forever.
God, I really loved you a lot.
It’s not about the field or the sky or the drought or desperation though I am desperate. It’s self-preservation. Shoot preservation, I should say.
I couldn’t stand it.
And there’s no real way to explain it to someone who isn’t sitting in the soil with me begging things to grow. The heat will bake my back and the cold will burn and crack my hands, may slow my heart, but the hope of life with lush green valleys is worth whatever the cost will be.
I had to get with people.
I’m sorry I can’t make you understand.
I couldn’t handle life with you anymore.
May 29th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
I have very strong feelings about this post. I want to take it to lunch.
Rock on.