April 24, 2018

the unplanned, the un-choreographed, the unintended,
the rootless, the formless, the still-to-be-named

This time around, I'm giving the peas permission to die, knowing what I know
about my spotty record. Last summer, they barely made it to the trellis,
then withered on the vine after bearing a handful of pale, underwhelming progeny.
It's not that I can't muster the effort or even the hope, which flowers perennially
despite the evidence stacked against every good intention. But what I want now,
also knowing what I know, is to square myself to the fickleness of survival,
acknowledge success as more accidental than earned. When I bend to the earth,
I want to do so on tenderer knees, without the ardor of expectation or reward.
What I want is to praise the bending itself, the miracle of the body, any body,
moving through its orbit, whether fallow or fruitful, not despite the odds, but because of them.