garden

A small knot, circling around itself, tying tighter and tighter with the attempt to contain. Each new pain plaited and patterned and looped into all other pains. A tiny seed full of power and purpose. And potential. Full of potential, full of fear.

Each day I look at its tiny self. Consider it carefully at arm’s length. Don’t touch it, don’t poke at it. Seeds will grow in their own way.

What do they need? Water? Enough space – for what? All their capability is inside.

What do they wait for? A fair wind? A warm current? A soft breath of encouragement, a whisper…?

Nothing can grow without change. Let it go. Feel the surge of purpose unleashed and full of gawky shapeless chaos – fronds furling and unfurling, wriggling over and under, nothing pretty or neat. All efforts going into growth.

Let go – allow that loosening of present form to allow for something else, something on the move. Unstick from fixed position, nourish with loving attention. Get stuck in there, turn up the soil all moist and rich and black, wipe those muddy fingers on your clothes – make a mess. Poke and prod to your heart’s content. Flood the riffled earth, wash some away to reveal or to hide the fragile smallness washing over the path, flakes of long-surrendered plant forms, nourishing wisps devoted to encouragement, to feeding, to serving.

Is it still there? Is there only one? What about the joy of those other tiny dots, awry in a child’s hands, a torn packet scattering itself over the table, on the grass, later to be found in ears or hair, under grubby fingernails or folds of sleeves. And some in tiny, organised regiments in the greenhouse.

Everything is as it should be. The way things should be is the way they are.

Life, profligate and rich, squandering itself with joyful abandon where it shouldn’t be. And laughing with delight to grow.

May 2022