Summer

My hands forage for edible leaves in the thick forest of kale. I salvage what I can, leaving the rest for aphids and rabbits and worms (the worms always get something in the end, don’t they, whether it is the tender flesh of bunny or ribs of a browning leaf?). I encircle the stalk with my calloused palms and pull. The sound of separation, of cleaving, the arms of the plant reaching deeper and finally giving as I pull and pull and pull those exploratory veins from the earth. Roots ripped from soil lay in a tangle of delicate threads, moist bits of sand and clay and billions of bacteria falling onto flowers, onto plucked stems, onto the same ground below. Ashes to ashes, dirt to dirt. 

It is time to play Shiva.

As the sun seemingly stalls overhead, summer begins with destruction and life. It is time for the new. I clear beds of green and yellow and brown. I feed the compost with what we didn’t consume. I heap the beds with manure and work it into the hungry ground. Smoothing the bed, I untuck seeds from colorful packets promising bounty and from my fingers nestle each one into its new home. 

This is the business of life. 

This is the virtue of death. 

The work never ends, thankfully. My mind on nurturing the radicle, the shoots and leaves, the fruits of the vegetables' sun-fueled labor, the harvest, the flower and the disintegration. I am here to witness it all as equinox becomes solstice and we begin to fall again towards that equal time of light and dark. I walk through a sea of pale daisies that were once shorn fields of bright yellow dandelions and I wonder what will come next. There is wonder and surprise as I ease raspberries from prickly branches that were once covered with blooms. I marvel as the carrots push at their dirty blankets of protection and show proud shoulders beneath a wispy sky of deep green. I consider the immensity of the universe, what we think we know, what we think we truly are, as each seed becomes something entirely different from what it once was and has always been. 

I tear away the old rotting parts, I plant the new. I farm, I write, I cook, I sit on the porch and let the sun coax out the freckles on my nose. 

This is summer. This is a seed for what is to come. This is the nourishment of now.

Predator or Pilgrim

I did it to preserve your life, keep you safe, shield you from the outside, I swear. 

And look what happened. 

They got in. You are gone.

On a rainy Friday I clomped over the dying grass and fallen evergreen boughs. Not ever-green when they fade into yellow-brown in the field. I stepped into the garden with sticks and fabric and clothespins in my hand. I was doing you a favor before the big snow.

Snow! 20 degrees would disappear in the night and droplets would turn to slushlets would turn to clumps of white then the most delicate whispers of clouds compressed into a speck on my upturned cheek. I would be up at 3am with spring on my mind, step out in nightclothes and boots to glance up at the swirling soft water above and over at you hidden under a white winter dress.

I wish I could say it was the fault of the clothespins I used to patch and pinch your coverings. 
No, it was my lack of thought that did you in. There I was on that Friday before Saturday snow, mittens wet and heavy as I pushed poles into the earth and unraveled fabric over the newly made bridges. I placed rocks and boards and bits of dirt on the edges, clipped the spare pieces together. I wiped rain out of my eyes and wiggled my toes in cold boots. I looked around at the bare blueberry shrubs and the straw covered garlic bed. I breathed in slowly and smiled at my work. At least some of you would be protected, I thought. The other kale of your brethren, well, they would have to fend for themselves under the ice. The sun set and I couldn’t save you all.

Saturday morning, snowday, the sun ricocheted off the whiteness of the valley. I squinted into the stillness and tromped through the powder. Snow! I hadn’t seen snow in years and I was as giddy as a five year old in a mud puddle as I stomped and stopped and listened, placed handfuls of snow on my tongue, marveled at the fences adorned with steep white peaks.

I walked to where you stood. Your house was partially toppled and covered with inches of hardening crystals. I brushed them off as best I could before my hands turned yellowy blue. I found where the ice had weighed down and torn the fabric. It was too stiff to mend. But you were still safe underneath all that fabric, all that snow.

I waited until the following afternoon to return and when I did your home came alive with movement. What was going on in there? A pair of wings, a trembling body tumbled out of the tear and disappeared into the woods in a flash of brown and gray. I could hear more birds inside. Nice! I thought. Now the birds have a place to keep warm! 
I slowly crept back to the garden gate, not wanting to scare them away.

I did not know they were feasting upon your limbs.

I checked on you again the following day, checked to see if the birds were still snuggling against your greenery. No birds, no greenery. Just thin stems of what you used to be. All of this preparation and effort to keep you safe, to shelter you: it was preparation for your demise. 

Maybe you’ll grow back. Maybe. But probably not. You are tired, broken, spent.

It makes me wonder how often I do this. How many times I carefully erect barriers to keep the cold out, keep the growing bits of me safe only to attract a haven for my predators. The kale plants outside may be frozen, but at least the leaves are intact, they will thaw when it warms up. Most likely they will survive a bit longer. This cold actually makes them sweeter. 

The ones inside are mangled and ragged. My best intentions gone awry. Or am I feeding the universe in a different way? Maybe those birds were actually the ones I was meant to protect and I just thought it was the kale that I needed to keep safe, nourished, warm? 

(As if I can protect! As if Nature needs me to keep beings safe!)

In the grand plan, unbeknownst to me, perhaps I was building a home for the birds instead of a refuge for the dying kale whose season was done, a season I attempted to prolong unnaturally. 
I attracted what I had thought were predators but were actually pilgrims. 

And thus killed the kale. 
So in the future do I do nothing? What does Doing Nothing look like? 
Or do I do everything, trusting that my actions serve what needs to grow even if the outcome seems to be a contradiction of the preparation?

Yes. And more of yes. And more of ice tearing open the covers and exposing the wilting within. And more of wings and warm beating hearts fluttering in the snow. And more yes and more moonlight on the sparkling fields and strange words uttered to the garden posts after days alone in the trees and wind and white. 

And more yes and darkness and growth. 

And yes. I am sorry kale and I am not.