It’s end the of the semester, which means haggard students, crying students, students explaining that their computers died, their grandmother died, their dog died. Liam’s school is gearing up for the benefit auction this Friday, which means lots of volunteers, lots of emails, lots of back-and-forth…and it’s been raining pretty much non-stop for the last ten days. A recipe for grumpiness on all fronts.
The last time the sun shone, sometime in late April, the boys and I planted seeds – pumpkins and sunflowers – and put the little cups of dirt on my windowsill, hoping the seeds would sprout. Given the lack of sunshine, I figured I’d be doing one of those bait-and-switch operations, in which I run out to the farmer’s market, buy seedlings, and tell the boys that these are what grew.
But then this morning:
Corny, but true: I always find this first appearance amazing. Something green and growing appearing from nothing but dirt and water (and a little gray daylight).
So all morning, as I’ve been scurrying from task to task, the last lines of Robert Frost’s poem “Putting in the Seed” have been running through my head:
…Love burns through the Putting in the Seed/On through the watching for that early birth/When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed/The sturdy seedling with arched body comes/Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
See? Don’t you feel better now too?
