Dream
I'm a little girl again. My
mother's working close to home, so she lets me come with
her.
She takes my hand. We walk to the place
where the seeds were just planted. The soil is wet and
black. A spade has turned it upside down, so the buried
earth meets the sky and the sky brings its breath
underground. It feels like I could fall right into that
deep, rich place. I crouch, pick up a handful of dirt, and
rub it between my fingers. I breathe in the mineral smell of
leaves rotting to make a bed for the new. The smell of
change.
Then there's a song thrumming through my
veins. It's a calling song. Calling seeds to crack open.
Calling shoots to push past pebbles and worms. Calling
moisture into their roots and up through their stubborn,
determined stems.
I realize the song is pulsing through my
mother. Her mouth is moving, and the song is in her and from
her. But it's more.
She smiles at me. "Do you hear
it?"
I lie on the ground and press my ear to
the earth. There it is: the steady pulse of roots, the
swishy sound of heads uncurling upward. All of it vibrates
like the air around a beating drum.
When the song is over and I open my eyes,
my mother holds my hand and helps me up. Then she shows me
the first one: a tiny spot of brilliant green, so bright I
think a piece of the sun is glowing inside. It looks so
soft. The round ball at the top is bursting open into
leaves, reaching as fast as they can from the soil to the
sun.