Tag: seeds

Let Them Be Left

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abouttobloom

 

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness?
Let them be left,O let them be left, wildness and wet,
Long live the weeds and the wildness yet.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “Inversnaid”

 

Maybe I identify with weeds as I too have grown a bit “excessive” in mid-life, growing unnecessarily and a bit fluffier than I need be.  Maybe I admire their ability to thrive where they land, resilient through all sorts of trials and deprivation.  Certainly they deserve appreciation for their wildly unique characteristics and their perfect imperfections.  Once I get to know them,  their beauty brings me joy.

I can only hope I too can be left,  my over-proliferation shown grace, my greediness granted mercy.

gonetoseed

 

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect.
~Alice Walker

 

lotsaweeds

 

…if the simple things in nature have a message you understand,
Rejoice, for your soul is alive.
~Eleanora Duse

 

weedybarn

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.
~A. A. Milne

closedfist

 

…make no mistake:  the weeds will win; nature bats last.
~Robert M. Pyle

 

weedybarn2

Tarnished

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thistlegrass2

In a patch of baked earth
At the crumbled cliff’s brink,
Where the parching of August
Has cracked a long chink,

Against the blue void
Of still sea and sky
Stands single a thistle,
Tall, tarnished, and dry.

Frayed leaves, spotted brown,
Head hoary and torn,
Was ever a weed
Upon earth so forlorn,

So solemnly gazed on
By the sun in his sheen
That prints in long shadow
Its raggedness lean?

From the sky comes no laughter,
From earth not a moan.
Erect stands the thistle,
Its seeds abroad blown.
~Robert Laurence Binyon –“The Thistle”

Lenten Grace — Planting the Soul

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the soil of freedom, spontaneity and love.

— Thomas Merton from “New Seeds of Contemplation”

May I be receptive soil.
May I become garden and nursery.
May roots reach deep within me.
May I bloom and fruit in God’s time.

Seeds of the Heart

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses, what might not the heart of man become in its long journey toward the stars?
—G.K. Chesterton

We are mere seeds lying dormant, plain and simple, with nothing to distinguish us one from the other until the murmurs of spring begin, so soft, so subtle.  The soil shakes loose frosty crust as the thawing warmth begins.   Sunlight makes life stir and swell, no longer frozen but animate and intimate.

We will soon wake from our quiescence to sprout, bloom and fruit.  We will reach as far as our tethered roots will allow, beyond earthly bounds to touch the light and be touched.
There is renewed hope seeded in the heart of man, ready and waiting to unfurl, with a precious fragrance that lingers, long after the petal has dried, loosened, and fallen to freedom.

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

Once the Weather Warms

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barnnov

As a child, my father helped me dig
a square of dense red clay, mark off rows
where zinnias would grow,
and radishes and tender spinach leaves.
He’d stand with me each night
as daylight drained away
to talk about our crops leaning on his hoe
as I would practice leaning so on mine.

Years later now in my big garden plot,
the soggy remnant stems of plants
flopped over several months ago,
the ground is cold, the berries gone,
the stakes like hungry sentries
stand guarding empty graves. And still
I hear his voice asking what I think
would best be planted once the weather warms.
~Margaret Mullins “Lonely Harvest”