I noticed the other day, in my flower beds, a riotous bunch of new growth. Gone was the bright Spring shoots of new life, the tender and slender stalks, the small fragile bits that make up miniature fields all in 1 stretch of ground not even the full length of my house. Now life has taken root and taken over. Now is work, weeding and the chore of tending. The crocuses have dimmed, their tall leaves growing and the flyaway seeds of weeds and wildflowers taking root along side them. Thickets of tangle overtake the first signs renewal. Now they are the dominant force and I am taken aback at how my little patches of land have gotten away from me.
When the earth warmed and the ground was moist and barren, these first signs popped up, fresh and cheery. And now Summer has not yet filled the air but I see her evidence in the ground, wet with rain or dried with shine, rife with scrub and boisterous pop-up plants. Now the thickets threaten the grass--my lawn if I mow it often enough--bragging and boastful in their sprouting, "Look how high! Look how messy! I'll fill you up too before too long." And they might. I've got my work cut out for me.
I cannot bring myself to pull them all just yet though. There are so few that are truly thick-stemmed and angry. Mostly they are a new green afro covering the earth, fuzzy and intertwined. I have plans--a kitchen garden of herb plants, a flowerbed for color and cutting--but those things I intended are not blooming yet and do not need the stage. They are grown taller, fanning themselves out. But they are not themselves yet as I remember them.
This place is still new to us, a plot we have not lived in a full year. I remember pulling weeds in patches as I needed the space in the Fall, but I need nothing now. I am not ready to transplant, group or cluster. Our landscaping is never that precise anyway. I know what's coming from I planted months ago. It's these unexpected things I notice now. How quick they are! How they use the rain to their advantage. How prolific and sudden. I don't have a plan for them, probably will not even next year. Why would I? Eventually the space will be filled with more and more perennials. We'll chip away at this bramble year to year. Or maybe we won't. In my naivete I may think so, only to have more spring up elsewhere. And so be it. The ground is the ground and the growth the growth. I will do my things and the miniature bramble will begin to block the sun to the basement windows. I no plans for every part of my plot. Only as things occur to me, as I see potential for a more manicured thicket, will I intrude. I like the work, when I want it, and have no inclination to be beholden to my yard by needing a pristine cut pattern, or clean cuts rather frayed blades of grass; I braid the suckers sprouting from I know not what kind of leafy thing leftover from the previous purveyors of this land. Let us both grow, taking a little time for crossing paths, but without needing to be in each other's way.
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